Garrote rounds off the basic 2 strength no-frills breakers in a rather disappointing manner. In terms of efficiency Garrote is on par with it’s brethren Corroder and Gordian Blade. But that efficiency is some what negated when first installed. At 7 credits you might not able use it once installed or even afford to install it when you need to. Of course they are ways of lowering this cost. Initially, though, Pipeline may be a better choice as a Killer.
The main issue with Garrote, and what makes it overpriced, is the cost in memory. For the 2 memory you would expect some kind of additional ability. Gordian Blade keeps it’s strength for the remainder of the run for a credit at a time, potentially saving money, for an install cost of 4 credits and 1 memory, comparably underpriced next to Garrote. On a more direct Killer comparison Pipeline has the same strength ability but for 2 credits a go, making it slightly fairer in pricing at 3 credits and 1 memory. An ability like this on Garrote may warrant the extra memory cost. I have a suspicion that during development there may have been an ability that was found to be overpowered, something in line with the flavour text, such as ‘de-rez the encountered ice if all subroutines are broken and Garrote’s strength exceeds the ice’s strength by X, X being the strength of the ice.’
After saying all of the above, by no means is Garrote a bad Killer, within faction it pretty much comes out on top and supplemented by Faerie you can face-check potential sentries safely whilst building the money to install, but there will be other killers that will better suit your build.
