The battle sprites are a great addition to the game, but if you use mouse to aim, it's a little hard to use the battle sprites ability unless you have a gaming mouse, and those can be pricey.

9/10

Yes, i got iron harness from the start. Anyway i see 1 needless harness in the shop.

Cool, a lot of people have already given their input! I'll go ahead and report what I've found and think could be improved~

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- This may sound a little picky, but Biotech Morlin has no indication that he is the NPC you need to talk to for this Mission. I actually glanced over his name at first and got a little lost in the Lab for a bit.

- Rhendon's dialogue during "A Revelation in Flames", "Angels from Antiquity" and "The Phantom Mask" is unskippable and lasts just long enough to read it. Perhaps a dialogue option could be added to choose when to continue with dialogue, giving the player a choice to wait and read it or skip it.

- The Seraphynx's ability "Heart Attack" seems to have a barely noticeable impact on Heart drop chance. The area of effect for this ability also seemed to be shorter than the visual effect was indicating, making the ability miss when it seemed like it should hit.

- Biotech Morlin's final bit of dialogue during "An Eternal Bond" is cut off before the player can read it due to the Mission Completed window opening up and ending the conversation.

- I had a few moments where my Sprite would stop responding. On the first run-through for "A Revelation in Flames", my Sprite actualy didn't respond to commands for the entire level.

- Sprites do not seem to level up from gaining heat during a level like Biotech Morlin seems to suggest. The Sprite's "Heat Level" does not seem to be relative to its normal level, and therefore leveling up the Sprite to get its new abilities and skill points is only obtainable by feeding it. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but the Biotech Morlin's dialogue is a bit misleading.

- Sprite ability cooldowns are way too long, making the sprite feel like it barely participates in combat, especially when playing solo.

- There are no tooltips for Harnesses or Perks that indicate what they do and what effects they apply to the Sprite and the Player. It would also be nice to have a tab to sort perks by Star rating as well, or have perks replace each other when a higher star rating version is obtained, like the Harnesses do.

---

That's all I've found so far!

Just a quick note to say: the new icons and tooltips for the sprite perks look AWESOME. I wanted to mention, however, that the menu is jumping around to resize for the sprite, harness and perk submenus--there is an obvious intentional difference in size between the sprite menu and the other two, but if you flip back and forth between harnesses and perks you will see it resize, and then resize again when you click or scroll, which I'm pretty sure is a small glitch.

[minor edit: I just noticed that the icon for the 'swift steps' (MSI) perk is slightly different than the rest: the corners are white, like an extra bracket. Wasn't sure if that was just part of the design (doesn't look like it), or a small graphical difference to indicate rare perks? At any rate, just wanted to mention it in case it wasn't intentional.]

An update! Sweet! I've given it a go and here's what I've gotta say so far~

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- Tooltips for Perks! Yay! And upgraded versions replace the old! Double Yay! They seem to work rather well and the icons are perfect for quickly assessing what's-what! Excellent!

- The idle sounds for sprites are rather cute! I like them, and there's plenty of variety!

- Despite the patch, Perks still aren't taking effect when changed within a level.

- The cooldowns seem to be alright at the moment, but making it global really discourages using anything but the first ability. Needing to wait 40 or 60 seconds every time you use the second or third ability gets very annoying, and the effect of those abilities doesn't really feel like it's worth the wait. I'd suggest making each ability have a separate cooldown, if possible, and maybe buffing up the second and third skills a little, even if its just their duration time. If the point of the global cooldown is to reduce spamming, then perhaps the cooldown time could be increased depending on party size. My other suggestion, if a global cooldown is really necessary, would be to have a single cooldown (Say, 20-30 seconds initially) that gets decreased every time you add a skill point to cooldown reduction on any of the three abilities.

- Seraphynx's "Heart Attack" still doesn't seem to do anything. I know this wasn't in the patch notes but I just thought I'd mention it again since it should probably be a high priority. Also, the Seraphynx's animation for "Ray of Light" seems to be animated to span the duration of a fully upgraded Ray of Light, but before it's been upgraded the ability ends halfway through the animation, making the Seraphynx stand in place there in a weird pose for a while.

- Maskeraith's ability "Shadow Cloak" take a little long to actually activate. If it's meant to be used as an escape measure then it's going to be fairly hard to use defensively if it's got a delay to it. Also, the ability "Poisonous Quill" needs to either stack on single targets, or pass through targets already affected by a quill. Most of the time Maskeraith ends up hitting the same enemy with most (if not all) of the quills, ending up with just one target with a single quill.

- I still keep having a lot of moments where my Sprite won't respond to commands. I end up needing to hit the button for an ability several times or holding down the button before the Sprite will respond. Usually by the time it does the ability ends up missing due to the enemy no longer being in range. Auto-targetting would be very useful for Sprite abilities if this lag issue is difficult to resolve.

- Biotech Morlin explains that Sprites obtain a random perk each time they gain a new perk. Perhaps each sprite should have a list of "specialty" perks that are obtained first to go with what that Sprite is used for. For instance, the Drakon could learn all of the 1-star "Damage Bonus vs ____" perks first, the Seraphynx could learn all the 1-star "Increased ____ Defense/Resistance" perks first, and Maskeraith could learn all of the 1-star "Attack Speed Increase", "Charge Time Reduction" and "Damage Bonus" Weapon perks first. The "Healthy Boost" perks could be learnt before or after the Sprites "specialty" perks.

- The Sprite's "Heat Level" still doesn't seem to do anything. Biotech Morlin explains that Sprites will level up by absorbing heat or eating food items and materials, but heat doesn't seem to go towards anything when it comes to the Sprite's level. The Sprite's appetite however does fill back up after gathering heat in a level.

Cooldown too long, Ultimate cooldown is like 3 minutes I guess?

Seraphynx Lazer hitbox: A BIG FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU seriously why does it have a maximum dmg? I can't deal more than a specific amount of damage with that beam. I had a perfect lazer blocking 2 zombol in the corner and I could see shield block, hear it and HATE IT!!!!!

The outer section of the beam can hit but the inner one has a maximum hit/dmg of some sort which is REALLY annoying. My beam is fully upgraded, it last for a good amount of time (5-7 secs?) and does 110 dmg inner and 30 dmg when touching it. Please make it so I can kill mobs with it? As it is now I can do roughly 400 to 500-600 dmg to them (if timed perfectly, happend 3 times over a lot of beam spam and only twice in open field area)

my personnal rant. Also the heart thingy does nothing but I think it has been brought up

Seraphynx shield: 2 sec? really? why does Drakon last for 5 seconds and it deals dmg while seraphynx main purpose is defense? Can't we have like 7-8 secs of shield? Like... not have to time it and just use it as a shield, you know? pop it before the 2 slags spawn to get some shield bonus?

Drakon: is pretty useless against vana... lol... firestorm just doesn't do dmg to anything there, IDK if it's the spell or because it's against fire type mobs but it should do dmg, granted not much, but it should do *some* sort of dmg at least.... the shield is nice though, LAST SOMEWHAT LONG ENOUGH (hint, hint, hint)

Maskeraith: The hexes should stack and not only be "put X" "wait for X to explode" "put another X" it should be a constant "put X" "put X" "explode" "put X" "explode" "explode" sorta thing... The defensive recon skill is awesome, my friend stood in middle of a room in depth 27 just before the wheels and staircases (you know with the 2 trojans, wolver and rez totems?) and wasn't being aggro'd while me and someone else was bashing mobs around, although he did get hit from a zombol jumping toward me. And the spikes should stack like the description says

Perks: Maskeraith has a clear advantage over the others with MSI med... you should give Drakon DMG med to sword n guns and have ASI for seraphynx. + have specific bonuses. Like reduce the overall status resistance to med and give high to specific one, fire/elemental high for drakon, shadow/curse high for maskeraith and piercing/ice high for seraph

Leveling system: It take soooo long... there is a max heat that can be given to a sprite on the preview server, will it be the same on the real one? my sprite couldn't get more than 1/4 of his lvl by heat, is it intended?

Overall satisfaction: 6.5/10, lots of thing to work around, major drawback is seraphynx for me... I would've give you 8.5/10 if seraphynx were working defensively and properly

Edit: Also tooltip says "Attack Speed Decrease: Medium" for swords on my drakon... just saying... :D

Edit 2: "I saw it was said before about charge, but also pet skills are unusable while knight holding a key or a totem. Would be great to be able to, better solo experience and very helpful pet."

Geezus I forgot about that.... MAKE IT SO THAT I CAN TELL MY SPRITE WHAT TO DO WHEN I CHARGE SOMETHING OR WHEN I LIFT SOMETHING OR EVEN BLOCK FOR THAT MATTER. I know it makes a silly "points" animation but can we take this off? It's effin frustrating to have a charged up weapon and not be able to use my sprites

On a side note: we can't drag/drop vials again, like on any patches you do you forget to do that change... please make it so I can drop vials once again, thank you ^ ^

Hurr about the perks, Drakon should get MSI Medium at its ultimate because it has MSI low (3*) at level 89. All of the sprites get the same perks. They just appear at different levels, it seems. I will not pick a sprite on the main server until I can test ultimates here.

Biscotti says "To REDUCE appetite quickly...". The tip should read as "increase appetite quickly" because he says "Quick way to burn calories."

Fire shield is best for Ice Queen Shadow Lair. Combine it with the shadow harness for so much win.

I've been able to get a much better assement of the Sprite system, as well as the Seraphynx in particular. First off:

Universal Recharge: I've talked about this before, but I'll iterate more on this. As mentioned, the ability for a player to chain fire skills is certainly a no-no, but I still feel the length at which all the other skills get locked out is a bit much. Especially the much weakers ones such as Ray of Light. Having the universal recharge lowered to about 75% or 50% of the used skills recharge time should generally work, since you probably don't want the last two skills used one after the other (They are major skills). I do realize that with this sort of system if one skill is almost done recharging, a player can use another active skill in quick succession with the nearly recharged one, thereby chaining; an easy way to avoid this issue is to reset the cool down of the recharge skill IF it's undere a certain threashold.

For example, if heart attack is about, say, 8 seconds almost done, and you use Ray of Light during then, then heart attack will extend its cool down to based on Ray of light own recharge. Either way, we really shouldn't be locked of our more simplier skills or other useful skills for just using one. Granted, I understand there needs to be some tactical thinking in when and where to use these skills, but...yeah.

Skills:

Ray of Light: Fully upgraded, it's dmg and length are pretty decent for what a standard attack should be like. However, there are two important things to note. First: Invincitinks. This is probably the first time I'm using the term here, but if a monster is taking un-interrupted damage from the laser (pulse after pulse), after a certain amount of hits they'll become invulnerable during the rest of the duration. This can happen especially on lumbars and turrets (And normally occurs when after a lumbar flinches). I'm pretty sure this a bug.

Secondly: Fast enemies can often past through the beam completely unharmed. This is mainly with Kats and Greavers when they dash, and this is really related to one of the issues the Winmillion's charge has: it pulses damage rather than doing a hit scan. As thus, monster can pass over the area before the next pulse comes. As far as I can tell, one of the most defensive properties of the beam is how it can act like a barrier, and while not entirely a major issue, it sort contraticts how the beam should work.

A solution would be to have the beam 'pulse' hit scan monsters individually. What I mean by this is that if a single monster were to make contact with the beam, they would take dmg and continue taking damage so long as they're within the field. Any OTHER monster making contact would get the same treatment, but rather than have damage occuring all at the same intervals, they'd be getting it assyncronously. Addmitedly, this is more complicated than simple damaging pulsing, since you need to keep track of each monster taking their respective damage pulse, but it should be doable.

Heart Attack: I love this skill. I really do. I know some other people might of had issues, but for me it seemed to be doing it jobs. Mind you I used this skill mainly on LoA on Elite difficulty, but still, hearts were certainly popping up more than often. Of course, this WAS the fully upgraded version, but that makes it only worth it to fully upgrade. Can't think of any wrong with this.

Angelic Aura (That's what it's called right?): Although the invincibility is handy, I do think that the shield field should be a bit larger, and POSSIBLY last a weeee bit longer. Even at max it's not easy for to support my fellow knights while bombing around them (Granted I only duoed LoA but still, it was difficult to keep around and raise his defense). Also, could there be a visual warning of when the shield is about to wear off, as it tells me when I should get the hell out of dodge.

Other misc:

Sprite perks: I like this a lot. Adds some very needed flexility, and I enjoy the new icons. One thing: the perks may not be working, as i'm not seeing them show up on my equipment. Even when I equip the extra hearts perk. Could be me though.

That's it for now. Overall, I do like this part of the update very much.

I agree with much of what has been said - I'm glad to see this in the game, and I, for one, am actually glad that the battle sprites consume a lot of heat.... gives people with all-maxed-out equipment something to do.

A few bugs/comments:
1) Perks and Loadouts - Select a specific perk (say, Liquifier) and save it to a loadout. Now level up your sprite until the perk upgrades itself (say, Liquifier II). The loadout now doesn't equip it... rather, it equips the default perk (which is the hearts). If a specific perk is upgraded, then any loadouts using that perk should be upgraded to the new perk as well.
2) Tooltips on the perk icons - With some of the perks (I noticed it applied to Quick Strike I, and Quick Draw I and II), the tooltip says that the attack speed is decreased..... even though when the perk is equipped, the appropriate attack speed is indeed increased.
3) Perk descriptions in Loadout - I don't know if this is part of the "not yet done, tooltips come later", but in the loadout screen, when mousing over the loadout, and thus viewing a list of the loadout's items, the perks show up with dev names (i.e. DMG_SLIME_LOW, etc.)
4) Perk applications - I didn't test for all of the perks, but I know for a fact that the Mighty Boom perk doesn't increase the damage bonus (when I view my equipment, both overall and for each weapon, the bonus is not there). I know it does work for some perks, though, for example, the one (can't remember the name) that reduces bomb charge time.
5) Ultimate Evo Catalyst - If this is intentionally being withheld until the update goes live, or until it's ready, etc., can we please know that? If it isn't, can there be clearer instructions for how to obtain it?
6) Evo Catalyst Acquisition - This has been mentioned before, but at least one of the NPC's should tell you how to obtain them. (Related side note: many missions have you talk to NPC's for things such as learning about minerals, crafting, etc. Why not add two more of those simple ones that require you to talk to Biscotti and the harness guy about sprite food and harnesses, respectively?)
7) Post-100 Perk Acquisition - One of the NPC's (can't remember which) tells you that it is possible for sprites to obtain additional perks, even after they reach level 100. I take this to mean that a sprite's max level is 100. If so, then how do they obtain perks after 100? Currently, they only obtain (or upgrade) perks while leveling up. (I mention this because it's important to have the NPC's direct you.. so even if you don't notice it the first time, you can re-do the missions to see what NPC dialog you missed).

Again - great update, can't wait to see it live!

On the main website, i have noticed that on the blog post about the news regarding the battle sprites, that the Drakon in its tier 3 form has "dark wings" attached near the base of its equipped harness. However, on the test server, the Drakon does not have these features.

Is this something that you guys missed, scrapped, will add, or something that was just concept art? Hopefully you will add this back to the sprite in question before launch either as the actual sprite model or as its ultimate form level up.

This was just something i noticed and was curious about so sorry if this doesn't match up with current feedback.

I did not read all of the posts on here, so I hope this has not been said too many times.

I find that the Sprite moves around way too much. What I mean is that it does not stay "over my shoulder" like I would expect. He tends to float around and get in the way, causing me to think it's another enemy. In addition, he may not always be pointed in the direction I am, and he may not fire in the direction I was intending.

An example of proper "pet" (for lack of a compatible term) placement, is Dungeon Defenders. The pet is always always in the same area.

I have seen an talked to people on the test server as to which sprite they favor most. In numerical order from first as the most popular and third as the least.

1. Maskerath
2. Seraphinx
3. Drakon

People are preferring the maskerath over all, mainly because of its final two abilities. Utilizing the time delay of the shadow cloak before it is activated people are charging their weapons and then turning invisible with a fully charged weapon, this is very useful for bombers. However once the charge is released the ability deactivates as it should. The hexing haze is also favored because once maxed out, a player can dish out a constant attack vapor with out the player ever having to step within an enemy's attack range. I have witnessed two of my friends orbit vannaduke with constant damage output from just their maskeraths alone. I'm not saying that this is bad, what I'm saying is that compared to the other sprites this one seems to be the top percentage. As for the toxic quills, people are complaining that the quills are not stacking? I have only noticed one quill ever sticking into an enemy the others damage and dissipate. poisoning is good but the other abilities is what makes the maskerath.

The seraphinx is second in line because solo players are preferring it. Yes, solo players, a sprite that was meant to be used for team protection is being played by itself. I have read and seen people use its other abilities to make them useful, but honestly the really useful ability is the giant shield. People have found ways to apply the laser beam to block enemy advancement, if you took the time to aim your cat sideways wile running away on a narrow path. I have read controversy over the seraphinx's second ability heart attack, people are saying it works and others say it doesn't. After playing on the test server using this heart attack and going back to regular spiral knights I have seen no difference in the effect. Enemies are dropping hearts at the same rate they would normally in my eyes. The shield is probably the best this sprite has to offer. however most people are saying that the duration of the effect is too short, and the area of effect is not large enough. I would have to agree, The timer is flawed buy the way, having it count from 1 to 0 five times is annoying.

Now for the boring drakon. That's right boring, I've used it others have used it, and frankly a brandish is better. Yes its got a concussive fire ball with knock back, yes it gives you orbiting fire balls that improve your defense, and yes you have a mini ash of agony that shoots in front of you, but I'm in agony over how inefficient it is. The fire ball, not very accurate for those people who don't use auto target. Orbiting fire balls for defense, I like pretending to be vanna as much as the next guy but there are only two orbs and they are only useful if you orbit the enemy in close proximity and increased defense, the other sprites do that so lets run the be like everyone else card. Fire breath, it is a mini ash of agony, Woo, and i say that with little enthusiasm. Know what else I'm seeing, fire, too much of it if you ask me. The other sprites don't use this much status affliction as much as this guy and he was supposed to be this way. Shame if players were to venture into an area with a lot of fire monsters that benefit from being lit on fire and DIE. There is such thing as too much fire.

How to improve, how to improve...?

lets start from the bottom up.

Drakon: instead of a defensive buff make it an offensive buff. Make players want to use him because he provides power! People love fire, I love fire, but sometimes you can have too much fire and die from it in compound 42. Lets think Skyrim for a moment or even DnD. There are more than one type of dragon in those worlds, yes? How about a choice for the player? Why have a fire dragon, when you can have a toxic one, or a shock one, or even a frost one! Every sprite has a harness that changes its damage type. make the drakon even more unique to the others and make his harnesses provide a different status affliction as well, players will love it.

Serapinx: Strait to the point with the laser, MAKE THE BEAM LENGTH LONGER, make it go through enemies so the ones standing behind the one being hit get hit as well. Or provide a small explosion per hit since you people decided to put a lame hit limit on its attack, and give it more knock back. Maybe change the attack all together, since it is a defensive sprite, have it project a WALL OF LIGHT that stops enemy progression. Keep working on the heart attack, still does nothing, but I know you guys will figure it out eventually. As for the shield, have the maxed out version be larger, time duration longer, etc, etc.

Maskerath: Does it stack? No the quills don't stack, make them stack.

For all of them: Everyone is complaining how using one ability makes the cool downs for the others the same. KEEP COOL DOWN TIMERS SEPARATE.

Regarding the various "will we be able to change pets at some point/will you be releasing new pets in the future" questions, I think the answer is yes. Given that the current three are being called "starter" pets, that phrasing implies that others will be released at a later date. Hopeful OOO won't make the new pets superior to the first three and instead will have them be sidegrades.

Also, switching Drakon to non-fire based attacks would be a really good idea, as his current setupmakes him impractical for FSC (aka the only mission endgame players will do on a frequent basis). Plus, fire is a rather mediocre status effect compared to some of the others (freeze, shock, and curse come to mind), so having Drakon deal out on of those status effects (or be able to be upgraded to deal one) would likely make him a more attractive choice.

Insert your own cooldown timers/skill broken/more explanation for new features comment here.

This is solely from my own testing with one Drakon sprite and seeing a few others that players had, but is there a way we may be able to change the skin color of the battle sprite?
Looking at it's skin color, Red (Toasty?), doesn't look too appealing and I may get bored with seeing 50 sprites of the same color.

Additionally, I also dislike the universal cooldown times. Instead of this, why don't we have it as "If this ability is already in use, calculate it's duration. While the duration is active, we cannot use another ability until the duration is over". Right now, it's simply absurd with having to wait for an ability to become active/clickable when the ability you just used has been done for a few seconds already.

The cool down between attacks is so long that it doesn't seem worth the bother. We can kill things without support just fine that the limited support we get isn't effective and with the cool down, it makes your battle sprite forgettable in combat. The fact that they don't come bound to a key starts some minor player frustration and if you use a mouse, you have to click on the icon meaning you only attack in one direction. Also some attacks seem ineffectual or what they do is unclear as in the cat's secondary skill when you get it. Does it heal you? does it raise defense? what does it do?

Suggestions: Set battle sprite skills bound to z, x and c to start to decrease player confusion about how to use them. Maybe make battle sprites have one key and instead of 3 skills it could be two skills one normal attack you use by pressing a button and a charge attack you use by holding down the button. This here would be more consecutive with the knights and how they handle and makes the mechanic more consecutive with the rest of the game play.

Needs work: cool downs, attacks, clarity of effects (we want to see something happen, even if it just says defense up and some glowy aura)

just a minor nitpicky thing... but I was wondering:

you know how you choose your Knight's picture ingame and it brings the little toolbar of menus? I couldn't help notice there's not one for the battlesprite even if hir (gender neutral pronouns ftw) picture is next to my Knight's? I was just thinking the battlesprite menu might be handy that way.

thank you for your time as usual!

-Vbunny

@ Vbunny: "hir" is not a word. At all. It is not in the Merriam Webster or Ofxord English dictionaries. Gender neutral = "its".

Before anyone claims "Wiktionary", that's not an official dictionary, just as Wikipedia isn't an official source.

I was excited to see what the ultimate sprites had in store, and I like it! I took my Seraphynx for a run around a couple clockworks levels, and here's what I have to say;

My ultimate skills are

- Disintegration Ray (Lowers defense)
- Iron Heart Attack (Drops defense orbs)
- Seraphic Aura (Recharges shield health much faster)

Disintegration Ray: This changes everything. Not only does this make the skill more useful, but it increases it's damage by quite a bit and makes it very useful for taking down bigger targets! Very, very good. Also, the ultimate animation looks awesome!

Iron Heart Attack: While it still doesn't quite drop hearts as much as I would like, the fact that it now drops defense orbs - and rather frequently - makes it much better, and definitely good for leading into a big battle. (Suggestion: If, for whatever reason, the heart drop rate can't be raised, maybe increase the Health & Remedy pill drop rate as well? Just an idea.)

Seraphic aura: And interesting addition for sure, and also makes it rather useful for getting back into a fight by using the time you have with the sheild to use pills and regenerate your own shield. Why it doesn't have a longer duration makes a bit more sense now.

--Overall--

What I like: These new additions to the skills make all of them much more useful and how they're supposed to be used much clearer, and *much* more viable for, say, a danger mission.

What I don't like: Hearts attack still doesn't drop quite as many hearts as I would like, especially for the pip-ripping blows teir 3 monsters deal. The antennae look a little weird, but that's just my opinion. Universal cool-down times are still annoying.

My ultimate choices for Drakon are as follows:

Meteoric Firebolt
Backfire Barrier
Explosive Firestorm

Feedback is as follows.

The Meteoric firebolt is okay. It has a very large blast radius and a cool effect, but that makes it so hard to see where monsters are going. If the radius is going to be that huge, give it supernova levels of knockback. Right now it's about 1.5 times the amount of a valiance.

Backfire barrier's speed boost is far too harsh. GM speed for a second is more likely to run you into hazards than anything. Cut the speed boost in 1/5 and change the duration to 5 seconds. Make it seem like the boost is useful for utility. As it stands, the Scorching Barrier is far superior because of it has twice the damage per second.

Explosive firestorm is absolutely amazing. The explosions don't move monsters around too much, and the fire + damage per second combo of it truly epitomizes what Drakon should be about. My only gripe is that if you're against a wall, this doesn't work at all. It's like with all guns that have projectiles that (for some reason) originate behind the knight. Fix it, OOO. (You could make bullets originate in front of the knight and make wall hitboxes bigger. That would be the smart idea.)

There also seems to be a trend with these ultimates. The less powerful one gives your pet a better look. How about you let us choose the appearance change we want?

Seraphynx
1 Dazzling light ray
I don't see any boost vs undead and fiends.

2 Violent heart attack
I don't see explosions, still low heart drop rating

3 Valkyrian aura
Yes, it gives ctr boost.

Drakon
1 Meteoric firebolt
It's still weak and useless

2 Scorching barrier
Not bad, but too close to player

3 Explosive firestorm
Thats how it should work without upgrade.

Maskeraith
1 Vengeful quills
It's hard to notice any changes.

2 Vengeful shadow cloak
Ok.

3 Haunted haze
Orbs have knockback and water drop damage.

The perk that gives you attack damage bonuses, either handgun, sword, or bomb, does not display its bonuses properly on the character tab. It does increase the bar though. But i'm not sure if it actually gives the proper damage increase.

Just a few quick thoughts on the latest patch:

The ultimates overall feel fairly well balanced (minus problems with drops and displaying perks, which others have already noted) with the exception of dazzling light ray. First, I'm not sure the bonus was working to begin with, and second, outside of vana farming--where you still get a bigger bang for your buck out of disintegration ray anyway since the def reduction is universal--it just isn't of much use. It's difficult to time the execution of Sera's ray on fiends anyway, and with a fiend or undead high perk available to supplement disintegration ray if you really wanted a boost, dazzling light ray is just dramatically outclassed. I read somewhere and then couldn't find the note again, but I agree that perhaps a slight tweak to the range or thickness of the ray would be a big help toward balancing dazzling out, as that would make it a bit easier to catch fiends with the skill. The only reason to get dazzling over disintegration atm is for the nifty jewel on Sera's forehead.
Which brings me to point number two: it would be really nice if we could have a preview function added to choosing ultimates. I know play style rather than customization will guide most players' decisions regarding choosing ultimates on their first sprite, but especially as more sprites are added players will be looking more and more at shooting for a unique look for their sprites, and it's a bit punishing in that regard to not get a look at how your sprite will evolve prior to choosing your ultimates.

[EDIT: Oops, forgot to mention a few things: First, I wanted to reiterate: please please PLEASE separate the cooldowns for sprite skills. Cooldowns for the individual skills are very reasonable at max/ultimate, but having a universal cooldown for all three skills on a sprite totally hamstrings sprites' potential for more strategic gameplay. Second, I like the changes to the skills' animations from the previous patch, but I wanted to mention that moving out of a sprite's skill animation is a bit awkward atm. Hexing haze, for example: big sprite animation, nifty purple haze surrounds you, and when the skill duration is up is just blinks out--doesn't fade, doesn't blink a few times to let you know it's going to disappear, just suddenly gone. Entering skills looks great, now we need a more graceful exit.]

So far, the sprites seem to be a great idea and are great in many aspects. I have no complaints

Does anybody know where i can get an Evo Catalyst? I'm pretty lost on where to acquire one.