Table of Contents
At last, we're getting a taste of K Corp. Identities. Ever since their first appearance in Canto III, Project Moon has been teasing us with the potential of K Corp. Identities, and now we're finally getting one in the form of a Class 3 Staff!
Impede the IntruderSkill 1: Great coin power which is good since it only has a single coin.
The skill gets a nice coin power boost of +2 if the target has +5 Rupture, but this scenario is unlikely and difficult to make happen, so don't count too much on it.
Decay BladeSkill 2: A nice Gluttony skill with high rolling coins that also inflict Rupture. It has a conditional that is similar to Hong Lu's skill 1, wherein it requires an enemy to have a certain amount of Rupture, but the amount needed here is even harder to get than on his skill 1, making it very difficult to activate.
Difficulty to activate conditional effects aside, the skill itself is great in inflicting Rupture and for clashing.
Excise TargetSkill 3: A very powerful Sloth skill 3. 8+4+4 power is nothing to sneeze at, and its conditional gives it another +1 coin power if Hong Lu has 80% or above HP, which is much easier to activate than the conditionals of his other 2 skills.
It's also good for inflicting Rupture, inflicting a decent amount of it for the first coin while inflicting Rupture Count according to how many K Corp Ampule Hong Lu has.
In the same vein, it lets Hong Lu deal bonus damage according to the ampule amount he currently has as well.
Defense (Ampule Injection, Block): A powerful Block offset by the fact that it gives Hong Lu K Corp Ampule, putting him closer to death's door as he can only use this skill three times in a battle before he ends up killing himself.
Passive (Regeneration Ampule Activation, 5 Owned Gluttony): ”When hit, if at less than 20% HP, heal by 90% of Max HP and gain 1 K Corp Ampule.
After this activates, gain 1 Fragile every turn for the rest of the battle. (Once per battle)”
An amazing passive. If you play your cards right, Hong Lu should not drop to 0% HP from just a regular hit and be somewhere below 20% HP instead. Once he drops below that threshold and gets hit again, he 'revives' and gets his HP back. He can do this three times before exploding as the 4th ampule kills him. He has no trouble fueling the cost by himself either, thanks to his skill 2.
Support (High-grade Ampule, 4 Resonance Gluttony): “At the start of the next turn, give 2 K Corp Ampule to the ally with the lowest HP percentage.“
Unlike his passive, his support passive is not as good, potentially deadly even. This is because he gives 2 K Corp Ampule, so if he hits the same ally with this support passive twice, it's game over for them.
Strengths
- Great coin power for all skills.
- Can only be staggered once per battle, as 'reviving' doesn't bring back the stagger bar.
- His passive gives him K Corp Ampule and heals him right back up as rain if his HP gets too low.
- Ampule Count increases his HP gained and in turn makes his skill 3 more deadly in inflicting Rupture and damage.
- Can fuel his Dimensional Shredder EGO.
Weaknesses
- Passive gives him Fragile upon activation.
- K Corp Ampule can end up killing him if stacked too much.
- Limited uses for Defense skills due to the above.
- Difficult to attain the conditional effects for skill 2 and 3.
- Support passive may outright kill allies by accident.
Potential Sinner Synergies
Outis - Seven Association South Section 6 Director,Gregor - Rosespanner Workshop Fixer,Gregor - G Corp. Manager Corporal,Ishmael - LCCB Assistant Manager,Faust - Lobotomy Corp. Remnant,Lobotomy E.G.O::Red Sheet SinclairAnalysis
K Corp Hong Lu is interesting. His gimmick is based around his K Corp Ampule status effect that he can give to himself (or his allies if he's benched for support duty). Basically, the more he stacks on himself, the stronger his attacks (most notably, his skill 3) get, but stack too much and he dies instead.
The amount of HP he has when taking into account the amount of times he can 'revive' thanks to his passive is actually ridiculous. That's around 800 HP that an enemy has to go through, and if they can't drop Hong Lu to 0% HP and instead leave him at around 20%, he heals back to full without his single stagger bar coming back. Yes, that basically means he can only be staggered once for the entire fight.
Thanks to this, he can play two roles at different times. The first is playing him normally, where he functions more as a standard tank at first. His coin skills are good enough as they are, even if most of the conditionals can't be activated. Enemies will take forever to get through his HP bar, especially since he'll be healing them off again and again.
The second role is a DPS wherein he trades the safety and security of getting ampules over time from his passive, to just injecting himself with 2 and going to town towards his enemies from there. He is much closer to exploding from his ampule count at that point, but his skill 3 gets decently buffed to deal more damage and inflict a good amount of Rupture Count while also providing him with healing per turn.
This is what a good tank in the game looks like. He hits hard and can take a lot of punishment, but he can switch roles from tank to DPS in an instant when needed. The moment he switches to DPS role is where things become risky for him, but it's also when he gets to deal the most damage.
