The official unlock condition for Freedom Five Absolute Zero has been discovered by the community!
First, play the Prerequisite Games. Then, the Freedom Five (non-variant team members) must defeat Progeny in Megalopolis. During that game, Absolute Zero must be dealt over 29 fire damage and must deal over 29 cold damage. Absolute Zero must have at least 6 Ongoing cards in play at one time.
The Prerequisite Games are:
First, the Prime Wardens (all variant members) must be defeated by Progeny anywhere other than Rook City or Megalopolis. Then, Dark Watch (all variant members) must by defeated by Progeny in Rook City. Then, the Freedom Five (non-variant members) must be defeated by Progeny in Rook City.
Someone did it. They finally did it. Now to just do it myself.
Woohoo all current variant unlock conditions discovered.
holy crap o.o
Time to actually get him! :D
It looks like the main distinction we were missing was that 6 Ongoings needed to be in play at the same time, not just having played 6 throughout the game.
Yup! I'm a bit surprised nobody reported unlocking him while incapacitated, which is totally possible.
I finally got around to doing this.
I put myself in a bit of a bind when I did too much damage to Progeny with Lightning Assaults, and Absolute Zero had yet to meet his required offensive damage. For a while he was at 2 HP and everyone was leaving him alone. Eventually I coaxed a couple of Scions of Frost on to him and pinged him so he’d heal. From then on I was careful to keep him above 8-9 HP. Particularly once I had to play things like Impale and Cold Snap to meet the ongoing count.
Like with the Termi-Nation variant unlock, Thermal Shockwave really is the key card. It’s the one way that AZ can ensure he takes a lot of fire damage. Progeny only occasionally does fire damage, just when the Scion of Fire comes out or he plays Elemental Outburst. Otherwise it’s mostly energy and radiant. Once I managed to get and use Thermal Shockwave a couple of times I easily reached the 29/29 requirement.
It took me a moment or two to realize the ongoings don’t have to be unique. Sure, multiple copies of Coolant Blast aren’t useful, but they do count toward the 6 out at one time.
It was interesting to see that, despite how brutal Progeny can be, it’s possible to get him thoroughly under control. Sure, several heroes were hovering at 8 HP for a while, but once Legacy had Next Evolution / Lead From the Front out, he could counter the primary damage (energy front side, radiant back), and smoke bombs like Absolute Zero tank any other damage that snuck in. It helped that 3 of my 5 heroes were tied for lowest HP and stayed tied. When I did manage to heal back above 10, it was with Motivational Charge that maintained that balance.