Paintbrush ... finally on it's way to maybe okay?

IDK wait fools are saying Paintbrush is bad in Kit. It's dope. It allows you to extend the usefulness of whatever Power Decoder you're using well into the late game, even allowing you to forgo other breakers entirely with other support. Not bad in the slightest.

Though, you're also not playing Tinkering, which is totally good too.

But parasite will take you forever for 4+ strength no? I feel like Knifed, Spooned and Forked would do the job faster plus with Same old Thing to replay them. Just take three of one kind and use them when you need to destroy an ice.

Paintbrush is pretty great, especially in Kit. Run Tinkering as well and you don't need any other breakers XD I think that might work best with study guide since you can pump it to 7 and then break Wraparound without a fracter

@rico_dorito Parasite dose the job easy here its also key that it's 2 Influence and works with Clone Chip, unlike Spooned which is 3 influence with a ID that only has 10 & dosn't share that synergy.

The thing is a 4 Str sentry with a Parasite on it will become a 3 Str and so then Mimic can get through you don't have to kill the ICE.

If that's what you're using parasite for, why not datasucker instead? It's far more effective at getting strong sentries into mimic range, saves you an influence, is more reusable, and synergises nicely with study guide (if there is one piece of ice much stronger than the others, that needs to be dealt with but is not worth the credit investment).

You could even find room for my favourite Workshop target of late, Clot.

Seems that everyone has their own approach to Kit, invariably as it reflects a personal play style. I admire the fact that you're giving Paintbrush a good crack, although I regret to inform that I'm one of those commenters that has joined the bitterly disappointed camp.

I've been playing her very successfully for a month or so and when I look at this build I fear for your economy and the speed of your rig... but then I like to be hitting servers as fast as possible on Kit builds as I feel that early game security is her greatest advantage.

Where is the money coming from to fund this rig? Stimhacks are a good idea, but but I've always been adverse to the brain damage, especially when running on Jinteki persistent net-damage builds. Your rig (Especially Study Guide) is going to require buckets of everpresent cash and this build doesn't seem to have it- I'm going to vote *needs more Magnum Opus, less programs, more Modded, more Test Run, more Tinkering, more Infiltration, more Spooned, more Professional Contacts. One run per turn seems to be my mantra with Kit, then economy clicks. Make them count!

Thanks for all the suggestions, excellent food for thought.

@llama66613 Paintbrush is a super way to synergize with a Kit build for sure, but my main worries are -- 1) Ice has to be exposed first so could lead to nasty surprises (losing your 13 cost Study Guide would definitely sting) and in an RP-heavy world, clicks can be really important when you need them. Of course, neither stops me from trying to color the world.

@rico_dorito PinkWarrior covered the main benefits of parasite over spooned -- influence and more natural (for shaper) recursion with clone chips. Also, corps will try to put code-gates in front of other ice types and I would rather destroy the ice behind the code gate then have the code gate move down first ice position and have a effectively 2 code gate server again. But parasites without datascukers are definitely slow and corps will purge to save expensive ice.

@RubbishyUsername Your points about datasuckers are good ones and worth trying out over parasites. My fear would be without a way to get rid of ice, the # could overwhelm reasonable Paintbrushing but maybe with Study Guide + 1-2 other breakers + datasucker tokens that's not valid. Tempting to drop 1 parasite for 1 datasucker but memory already tight.

@DavidMac Economy is definitely a potential (large) problem in the deck. Unfortunately, usually my decks move from dropping the toys and adding the money over time. If you count stimhack (which PW + study guide I think is valid) then it has 11 pure(ish) econ cards ( SG, ACB, Kati, Stim, PW, SV ) with 3 sorta-econ cards in Lockpick ( although they double duty with pumping strength off-runs). Having 3 PWs out doing work is probably not realistic (and 2 being actual useful so-so likely) so total econ without early-ish Kati a legitimate worry (But Kati always comes when you want her right ... ). Plus with a click-intensive Paintbrush, armitage is probably not the best choice but wanted something a bit more bursty than Daily Casts. Not sure what good alternatives are though -- Magnum + Paintbrush is already full memory so that just doesn't seem feasible. I could switch to the old standard of 3xPro-Co + 2xKati (maybe dropping the 2 SV + 3 diesel and going to 3 daily casts over 2 armitage). I used to be firmly in the Pro-co boat, but it is a high-variance card, awesome appearing early (even with tempo hit) but rapidly un-awesomeing in mid-to-late game. Probably not thinking hard enough, but the other main econ engines (e.g. criminal run-based, au revoir, etc.) don't seem to fit.

Not a fan of getting punched in the brain either (why does my brain hate my best card so much?) so I usually use Box-E as my console for a stimhack heavy deck. But Kit ... inf ... yeah. Still might bite the bullet on the influence because that would help the memory issues as well (and possibly free up akamatsu spots for money). I think Kit is meant to be aggressive and have enjoyed both Stealth Kit and Yogosaurus Kit builds in the past. This build is definitely not as aggressive but more aiming for a control game with Paintbrush + big Study Guide cruising through the ice. Given I have to be face-checking with SG most new ice to get it rezzed, I fear that getting the time to build to the late game will be a problem.

@RubbishyUsername Their are a few reasons why Parasite is better than but mainly its down to it been more flexible. Datasucker in that position can stop working after a virus purge since you may not be able to get into a central, 2 datasucker can't kill the ICE its on if left long enough, and 3 datasucker doesn't force either a new install of ICE or a purge every so often.