I find it odd that this card doesn't have a review after so long, so let's change that.

Honestly, it feels like a very underwhelming signature card. Essentially it lets you deal up to 4 damage in a turn, by spending every action to evade an enemy. This feels awful. You could combo it with Cunning Distraction but why?

Ultimately if you want to do damage you will tech into Ornate Bow, so perhaps you could use this to tide you over? but then again this is, unless I'm misreading, 3 actions for MAX +3 damage IF you hit all the checks.

So how is this card decent? The its ability to handle multiple 1hp enemies, or two 2hp enemies, then it's 3 actions to kill 2 or more, which feels alright.

I find the situation in which this card can do its job, deal with multiple 1hp enemies, is slim but it can happen. If you play Rita and focus on dodging enemies throughout the game, chipping away with 1 damage from her ability, you can clean them up in one big turn.

Important note It readies all enemies and makes it terrible to exhaust them, so if you don't kill something get ready for a smack.

I think that my group will change this card to just deal +1 dmg for the remainder of your turn whenever you evade an enemy, and add little clause that your investigator ability is not once per round this turn so you can evade whole turn and deal 2dmg each time. Because this card is soooo bad that it just gets commited, i have never even seen it played which is insane considering how Hoods is one of the worst weaknesses in game. I do wonder who balances these things out, when you look at Stella Clark and see her weakness is nothing, but she also gets 3x Neither Rain nor Snow i wonder what are they thinking

Rita's signature will usually just be committed to a skill test, but it does have some niche uses that synergize with cards she's already likely to be playing. It also sometimes just saves an action by fulfilling the same role as Taunt.

Cards that incidentally evade like Cheap Shot, Breaking and Entering, Sweeping Kick, or Stunning Blow make this a way to turn what would usually be wasted evades into extra damage, by effectively giving her the same effect as her Elder Sign for the turn.

This is especially worth it if you play this after you've already drawn the Elder Sign that turn or during the Mythos phase. In that case it turns each evade into a free 2 damage. Rita does also have Ace in the Hole which could add up to a lot of damage in one turn.

Finally, this can turn Fire Extinguisher into a mini-dynamite.

I think Rita is super fun. Her Survivor mixed with tricks just keep getting better. Her signature has always been incredibly lacklustre except in rather niche applications, and even still, I think Rita's signature just doesn't do anything at 1 player, and at 2 player it can act as a fast action engage to get an enemy off your cluever. But after Edge of the Earth, The Scarlet Keys, there are some really interesting interactions with this signature that make Rita a 3p or 4p powerhouse AoE dealer. Now, this is a heavy caveat, because you still need to have the tools in hand, and without search, and minimal card draw, being setup at the time you need to pull this off is rather unlikely to happen.

This card comboes super well with newer cards that have added automatic evades to their effect. Sweeping Kick now becomes a 3 damage event. Breaking and Entering is now gain a clue and deal a damage. Confound is discover 2 clues and deal a damage. This isn't earth shattering of course, but important to consider instead of simply throwing this card at a skill test. Dirty Fighting now becomes essentially a free 1 damage as that evade gives you a free fight action. This is on top of Rita's innate 1 damage ability, assuming you haven't drawn an eldersign. But what if you could evade all enemies in one action? Survival Instinct (2) is something else. 1 evade actions turns into dealing 1 damage to everything at your location?! Great.

Obviously, this is all so situational. The main benefit of course, is Rita being able to use her agility value to ping damage. It is most effective with swarming enemies, and just higher player counts when there are simply more enemies. In a way, this space is also occupied by the Hemlock Vale card Elaborate Distraction, which simply lets you ping every enemy at your location and adjacent locations. And it leaves me feeling I wish Rita's signature had the option to also engage enemies at adjacent locations, because now this also feels a little underpowered.

Ultimately this card is still well underpowered for a signature, and extremely niche, and will get almost no value in true solo (though a free engage on an aloof enemy is still very nice). This card does not affect Rita's playstyle because you cannot play around the hopes of getting it. But on average, when combined with Rita's actual signature Sweeping Kick, this card reads as a fast, 0 cost engage action and 1 testless damage. Its not amazing, but when combined with Long Shot, Rita now does have some extra ways to deal ping damage.