Tactical Breach Wizards – Why Genius Grant is the Best Perk

Why Genius Grant is the Best Standalone Perk and How to Use It

By Astro_Gamer.

Spoilers!

So, I don’t know how many other people this applies to, but after getting the main upgrades for Banks I wanted I picked up Genius Grant because it seemed good, but soon figured out that it never seemed that useful. I couldn’t figure out how to use it. Blind Faith and Friendly Refund seemed to largely replace its usefulness.

This was until the litteral last fight against Liv that I found out how to actually use the perk effectively(turns out I had read it wrong the first time). So here I will explain how the perk works, why you should grab it, and the best ways I’ve personally found to use it.

And to clarify, by Standalone perk I mean as the only perk used, perks with a 2 are counted as 2 perks for this definition. And “story” perks count aswell.

What Is Genius Grant?

Genius Grant is the first upgrade available for Banks’ ability, Transference. It refunds your use of Transference whenever you assign the Protected(first target) to an enemy, or the Protectee(second target) to an ally. As a reminder, transference has you select a Protected and Protectee, and the first source of damage or knockback dealt to the protected is redirected to the protectee, as if they were the target.

What Are the Applications?

There are 4 uses for Transference:

(Protected to Protectee)

• Ally to Ally
• Ally to Enemy
• Enemy to Enemy
• Enemy to Ally

Ally to Enemy is the only scenario that does not proc Genius Grant, and will thus not be discussed further.

Now lets go over the use cases for the 3 remaining options:

To start with the most straightforward: Enemy to Enemy. This is best used for one or both of these 2 reasons: the attacking character cannot see the enemy to target it, the attacking character cannot target the enemy in the right direction. Both of these scenarios require Transference to be available, said character to see an enemy and, in the case of the 2nd reason, see an enemy in the direction they would like to see the target enemy.

This allows you to not only target any enemy as long as you can see one enemy, but also allows you to hit an enemy from an angle that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to. This feels like being able to use Dalls combo of Blind Faith and Friendly Refund that allows you to freely swap allies around, but for enemies. Its great!

For Ally to Ally and Enemy to Ally, the applications are largely the same. Be able to target any ally as long as you can see any other enemy or Ally, in the direction from the attacker to the protected.

What Are Notable Combos?

I have found these to be the most notable combos:

• Dall w/ Rampage 2. Who would’ve guessed the most comboing upgrade in the game would combo with this? What it does is if you have Dall inbetween 2 enemies that have atleast 2 spaces between them, she can continuously run between them. With genius grant, this knockback and damage can be redirected to any other enemy on the field, allowing you to damage them for free since it doesnt consume Dall’s action, Transference, nor the health of her targets.
  • This can also be used to improove the combo of Persistant illusion and Rampage 2. You can use Persistent Dellusion as the 2nd enemy for the purposes of the combo above, but would only be able to damage the enemy at half the rate.
  • For either of these combos it is recommended to buy the other upgrade for Transference, Overreaction, as even if you dont deal damage or knockback to the target, they will gain a stack of unsteady that will eventually let you deal knockback and damage to them no matter their Armor or Sturdy.
• Zan with Persistent Delusion. Persistent Delusion can be used to place an ally on the field that can serve as a no cost protectee. If an ally would take damage via an overwatch, mine, or being shot, you can have Zan create a persistant illusion for you to redirect the damage too. Since it is an ally, it doesn’t consume Transference while still mitigating the damage, at no mana cost thanks to persistant illusion.
• Rion with Quickthorn. Once again, being able to move any ally infinitely, for free, from almost any angle, is good. Since it deals no damage and costs no action when used on an ally, you can use ally to ally to turn any ally as a direction to target any other ally with. With Persistant Illusion(and a nearby Zan or a Dall with the refunding swap), you can do this from any angle, then just damage the illusion to get it back for free. For a small combo this can be done with using Transference to send a damaging grasping vine at the illusion.

So Why Do I Buy This Upgrade?

Because being able to target any enemy aslong as you can see one, and being able to target enemies from a larger ammount of angles, at no cost, is absurdly good. It takes a bit to get used to doing such, but is well worth it in the end.