So I am polling right now, just to see how useful everyone thinks their battle sprite is right now. Please list your battle sprite type, what level they are, and on a scale of 1-10, how useful they are in your opinion. (1=useless,10=very useful)
So I'll use my answer as an example:
Battle Sprite: Maskeraith
Level:1
Usefullness: 4
Battle Sprite: Maskeraith
Level: 46 right now
Usefullness: 9
Novelty: 8
Potentially game breaking- the invisibility allows me to sneak up on and kill specific mobs including but not limited to deadnauts, gremlin menders and silkwings.
Battle Sprite: Seraphynx
Level: 6
Usefulness: 1
Novelty: 10
Seraphynx (Pirogi), level 32
Usefulness: 8
Skill distribution: 2/3/3 ; 2/3/0
Somewhat situationally useful, but pulls its weight when things get rough.
Ray of Light is remarkably good at locking enemies down to prepare a charged attack or for some breathing room, especially in crowded areas like some rooms of Ghosts in the Machine. I've used it to stop a Mecha Knight while trapped between two beams with my shield broken during the boss fight. And it works as a mineral smasher, for a bonus.
Heart Attack I haven't used much, but after a few skill boosts it's starting to look useful for recovering in easier to handle areas. Rank 3 Extra Hearty skill gives you 25 seconds of Heart Attack, which should be plenty of time to kill something, even at full health.
I know it's only 4 posts, but has no one seriously picked Drakon yet?
Drakon
> Level: 16
> Usefulness: 2
> Novelty: 8
It is not that useful at the moment. I just use the firebolt for lolz. But it is really fun to use.
Seraphynx (Griggle)
Level: 18
Usefulness: 6
Novelty: 10
Adorable, but don't take that grade just yet, I am using a 2* "weapon" in a 5* arena, so I understand why people hate the sprites, specifically the old timers.
Kitty (Avarice)
Level: 35
Usefulness: 8
Novelty: 10
Maxed out Heart Attack, dropped 3 points into Ray of Light to make the range longer. Heart Attack is amazingly useful, especially if you play in elite, for you and your party members. Also the 3rd skill (which I don't have yet) makes you, and anyone close enough to you, invincible for a few seconds. If you can't think of nasty uses for that you're not trying hard enough.
I find Ray of Light sub-par at best, but Seraphynx is a defensive pet, not offensive. So I expect the actual attack on it to be rather meh.
~Gwen
Drakon (Vaedran)
Level: 28
Usefulness: 5
Novelty: 11
Firebolt seems entirely cosmetic and I think the damage numbers should be replaced with the text "Doesn't this look cool?!". I have used the defensive ability a few times and have put points into extending the duration. Can't really say much about anything as I don't have Ultimate skills.
Currently my pet exists to give me minor status resistances, and that seems to be it.
Drakon (Nitre)
Level 40
Usefulness: 7.5
Novelty: I dunno, I didnt think much of his novelty until inamed him after a component in explosives, me being a pure bomber and such.
Firebolt is not geeat, but it is useful for covering my lack of range. Overall not bad.
Fire shield is wonderful, and works in perfect synergy when using shard bombs aggresively. Not to mention the def boost seriously saves your arse when you need it, though I seriously think it needs twice as much duration..
Charmander lvl 1
I still don't know how to feed the little Feller..
@Feller: Go to the Character menu, look up on the top for the Battle Sprite tab, click that, and click your Battle Sprite. There should be a feeding area where you can put materials.
I recommend spare 5* materials when he doesn't need any actual Sprite food. The Sprite Food (in your case, Power Motes/Dust/Stones/Orbs/Stars) is made at a special crafting machine by Biscotti in the Lab.
Anyway, I got Drakon.
Name: Bunsen
Level: 17ish
Usefulness: 3
Novelty: 10
The Firebolt and Fireshield aren't great yet. But that's because, at his low level, Bunsen is still a 2* "weapon". That said, the afterburn HAS shown itself capable of doing some passable damage even now.
Battle Sprite: Seraphynx
Level: 42
Usefulness 7
Novelty: 10; named it Gravity-Cat.
Adorability: 10
Ray of Light isn't all too useful; it doesn't track enemies and the Sprite just stays still for the duration of the attack and inflicts minor knockback, so it's only really good against static enemies.
Heart Attack is really good in Elite levels where health is required more often. I'm one Skillpoint away from Ultimate, hopefully Ultimate which increase its potency even further.
Not unlocked the Aura yet. 8 levels to go
Xavyiu (Drakon)
Level: 21
Usefulness: 9
Firebolt is pretty good when maxed out with stats. it inflicts fire often, which I like.
Flame barrier is really good because it burns enemies a lot when i'm trying to sword them, and it boosts my defense.
The 3rd skill is probably going to be epic. So, 9! :D
Drakon (soon to be renamed Drakorious)
Level:10?
Usefulness:3
Novelty:10
It's plain fun. Canine-Vladimir this is better than bash in terms of novelty.
Seraphynx (Nyrexsaph <--- quite please with the name TBH, Seraphynx put in different order)
Level: 45
Usefulness: 8
Heart attacks at first since the lazer doesn't do squat, till the lazer hit ult I won't use it (defense nerf)
Heart cooldown: 40 secs. Does up the chances for more hearts, doesn't imply you will get more. It work though, it's awesome. I always do it where there is a pack of enemy, last long enough to do it at first and kill afterward.
Maskerwraith
Level: 28
Usefulness: 8
Novelty: 8
I only have the first two attacks but the quills are very good for poisoning enemies (especially vanaduke) and the cloak is very handy for, quite frankly, saving your ass.
Maskeraith (Fang, I am so original...)
Level: 24
Harness: Elite iron (I dont care about the damage my mask does and the 10% cooldown reduction is great for long timers)
Usefulness: 8
Quills is exactly how you think it would be. You shoot people, poison then, destroy quills for more damage. While the damage is not that great (it might get better at higher lvls) the fact that you have such a high chance to poison (100%?) is such a great thing. In places where there is a trojan with healers you can easily put down your sprite, run to the other side and the sprite shoots the trojan in the back.
Now the Cloak is very underestimated by some people and others do not see the point of the defensive buffs. While the buffs may not seem useful at first you will find that with things that are tricky to avoid (rocket puppies, trojan in a corner, Vanas mace, etc) it can be very helpful. If you know you are going to be hit you can just pop the cloak and tank the shot. While this may sound silly it turns out to be extremely effective when you really need to be safe.
Now the stealth aspect of it, this is where the fun comes in. Most of us have done the gun puppy room in FSC, well with the cloak you can do it with swords and sprite only. Just kill all the mobs on the left and draw the other up from the bottom. After that is done just use the cloak and walk safely past the gun puppy with nothing to worry about. This is the perfect example on how this skill is awesome, you can tank hits, lose agro, and best of all just walk away from anything you want.
All in all, I feel like I just became a new character with all I can do. I deal more damage (for everyone in the party), can safely do things others cant (gun puppy room), and I can run away from Greavers (yes, this is one of my highlights, I hate them that much).
Seraphynx named Nermal
Level 31
"Iron Harness with 5% cooldown" for extra Nermal Damage
Yeah, about 8
Its all about that heart attack, with maxed out skill points in the drop chance of hearts this catbug is a real team player in the sockworks.
Also having a mew that knows hyper beam at level one is a bonus.
Friendly Tim, the Masked Space Cow
Level: 51
Usefulness: 9
I didn't bother putting any skill points into invisibility, saving them for when I got Hexing Haze. Hexing Haze is just fun. Not overly broken, but it's quite satisfying. Quills is really nice if you wana nuke down a single target.
Maskeraith
Name: Radius (get it?)
Level: 30 (Once he hit 30 leveling is ridiculously slow. Kudos to all those level 40s)
Usefulness: 7
Novelty: 9
Lets see mask is very fun to use. I maxed out the poison needles because I didnt think the cloak would be very useful until like level 28. Alot of potential though. Each needle does about 30 damage when i hit a mob but I think the poison might make my damage increase when I hit them too. I shoot like 10 or so needles. I've played awhile and I would be fine without Sprites but the game is more fun and I added it to my playing style like Dash.
Shotjeer's alt will be taking control of this thread, as I only use "Shotjeer" for forum posting, but Trollolol-Knight is a NPE alt created 3 months ago. It is going through training atm, but will be shotjeer's main once finished.
Purronius, level 51
Usefulness : 9
Novelty: 10
Having all 3 now is great, the little UV bonuses are fun, and Ray of light really gets a damage boost at 50. In a D28 graveyard, RoL was doing 96dmg per tick against zombies. Heart attack is useful, and being invincible is key. All i can say is i can't wait for the ultimate abilities.
Sprite: Maskerwraith(Vyse), Level 12
Usefulness: 5
Novelty: 7
My sprite is giving me that good feeling of making progress. I only really use the toxic quills to take down larger monsters like lichens and lumbers in fewer hits. It definitely does help, but there is limited versatility.
So I am sorry if this causes rage, but I'm starting up again. Now that people got used to them sprites, and possibly some more level 100s, you can post again. People who posted before can also post again.
Sprite: Drakon
Usefulness: 2
Novelty: 9
Level 77
Thanks to ping the skills don't even work on EU at all for me, so that kills most of its usefulness.
The ONE saving grace of these things are perks. They are like a free 3rd trinket. But better for the most part.
I really don't find much uses for it. Ping might delay the skills to near useless. I rarely if ever remember to spam Flame Shield during arenas: I'm too busy charging my Voltedge. Firestorm? A waste of cooldown, imo.
I hope that by the time I get the ultimates, Backfire Barrier's speedburst will be a lot more fun and useful than what it is currently. As well as the other skills.
Seraphynx (Yusura )
Level 100
Usefulness 8
Ray of light and those exploding from heat attacks are just underpowered
But the Seraphic Aura and heart droppings can pretty much keep me alive the entire time
Uhhhh...
Lvl 5-6 masky
Useful, 3
Novelty, 8
Yeah.... oh, name: Prostate
lvl:85
usefulness: 8.7
novelty: 10
Battle Sprite: Maskeraith
Level: 52
Usefullness: 7/10
Additional notes and scoring for separate skills below:
- At first, when I was reading about Maskeraith I though Hexing Haze will be awesome while Caustic Quills seemed a bit meh. It turned out to be the other way round. Caustic Quills may be treated as an unlimited supply of Poison Vials and I use it all the times. It is obviously useful when mender/silkwing is around. Also extra damage (from quills and poison) speed things up when I'm using suboptimal weapon (sometimes I have to use piercing on gremlin or shadow on construct since I'm not into extra slots). It's great with fire and shock since every tick activate single quill (Ash of Agni and Voltaic Tempest make great combos with Quills). Likewise it greatly enhance autoguns (each bullet activate single quill, so actually you activate all extra damage with single burst). It took me some time to learn aiming efficiently, but now there are few more enjoyable views then a lumber stuffed with quills. Definitely 10/10.
- I use Shadow Cloak much less often then Caustic Quills, yet it saved my life several times. I know I haven't discovered all possible applications of that skill, but so far it is real lifesaver. My two encounters with rockets puppies would end up terribly if not a cloak. Once it saved my butt when I got frozen by two Silversaps while playing solo. Normally they would finish me in few more hits (even though I had a Heater Shield, they would have enough time to break it long before I would defrost). I'm yet to learn using it more offensively, but still 9/10.
- I've got Hexing Haze only recently so I haven't got a chance to really check it out. So far it's terribly disappointing, yet it may be because I'm totally green with it. I haven't been to Arena since I got it, and I have a feeling it might shine there. I hope it will turn better when I put more skill points into it. So far only 2/10.
Hexing haze is only really awesome for weakening/destroying weakened/weak enemies. It is sortof like a very mobile but kinda weak bomb that you can use on your enemies. i only really use it against weakened opponents, but it shines against a mass of them. Also, dust bunnies and scarabs, etc. Against those minienemies.. Woot, they explode like popcorn kernels in a bonfire.
sprite: drakon
level: 70
usefulness: 5
firebolts deals quite a bit of damage. still not enough to match up with actual weapons, so it's not worth the cooldown.
flame barrier is impossible to use if you aren't right in the middle of a fight. practically, you must have a cutter or a flourish.
firestorm is useful, until you go into fire strata. then it's useless.
Battle Sprite: Maskeraith (Faithe)
Level: 54
Usefullness: 8
I use the quills fairly often (I especially like getting a diagnol on multiple monsters, or unloading them into a rocket puppy while swording it, kills them real quick), and invisibility is good for hairy situations. I'm still new to using the haze, but it does really nice on monsters in conjunction with the proper harnesses (pierce on the dust bunnies for example). I tend to go a little stardazed whenever I use it cause it's like "whooo get all the things!" So really haze is likely to get me killed than not right now when I use it. :3
All in all I really enjoy the extra flexibility the maskeraith has afforded me, I just hope the latency and auto attack related issues get fixed cause they tend to start feeding into each other sometimes.
Battle Sprite: Maskeraith (Nevermore)
Level: 78
Usefulness: 10
All in all, the Maskeraith is the best sprite in my opinion and is great for knights who can think fast and make the most of a situation. Strike from the shadows and reap the benefits.
dps sprites aren't helpful to veteran players. That little mewkat sprite is the best way to go, imo. If it wasn't for the perks, I wouldn't be rolling with my level 52 Maskeraith.
Drakon lvl 31
Usefulness: 2
This is probably because of my playing style focuses around charging my combuster and lining up as many monsters as i can to catch in the blast. I don't really go in swinging because my connection. I mostly use drakon as a shoulder canon to shoot out of reach switches and gunpuppies. I'd trade smoother gameplay for my drakon's help at least for now.
Type: Drakon
Level: Something
Usefulness: 394583459405234943850235035832532463247534968435934684368474646984689546894594564564+e
Type: Maskewraith
Level: 90
Usefulness: 9
The Vengeful Quills ultimate option makes the quills skill amazing, blanketing small groups of enemies in poison and shards. The shards themselves do 130-150 damage per hit, with 11 quills spawned per shot.
Cloak is kinda meh. A good escape/utility skill, but the cooldown is way too long.
Hexing Haze does a decent amount of damage, but isn't particularly game-changing.
Type: Maskeraith
Level: 55
Usefulness: 5
Reason why I give it a 5/10 is because I personally only find the Shadow Cloak useful (Assassinating enemies) and quills/hex come in handy sometimes although not very often. I'm sure I'm just a bad player for saying i can't find any use of these skills, but at least that's how I feel atm.
Type: Maskeraith
Level: 100 +1
Usefulness: 7
Elite Golden Harness
Virulent Quills, Deadly Cloak and Chaotic Haze.
Virulent Quills is okay for what it is, but honestly, I use Deadly Cloak and Chaotic Haze a lot more.
Deadly Cloak is awesome. Shadow Cloak was great when it worked. Chances were, you wanted Cloak to work either when you're surrounded or to bypass enemies. In the former, if it worked, it's a godsend, as you get breathing room so you can heal up or get into better positioning, but due to the game lag, there's a good chance it won't work when you really need it to. But Deadly Cloak? Whooo-boy, this thing's neato even in a normal room/battle. Because the buff will give you that extra edge you need to kill or damage an enemy before it can retaliate. Since this update, I've been doing (8-2) In Cold Blood a lot to get Shining Crystals. The second map has a lot of annoying gremlin menders. Deadly Cloak lets me get behind enemy lines to take out those little buggers first.
Chaotic Haze is neat. I just got it and went to try it out in JK. But my Sprite doesn't want to perform it very much. Perhaps the extra animation or whatever makes the command extra laggy? When it does work though, it's quite fun. I like using Chaotic Haze + Haze Bomb and running around the enemies and maybe getting them with a second hex. Status Storm!
But really, the big problem with Sprites is that more often than not, they won't obey. That's why I don't use Quills much. By the time they obey and fire the dang Quills, I'm already done. For Cloak, I just use it before I get overwhelmed, or before I enter a room. 15 seconds is plenty of time in most cases. I'm willing to sacrifice that 2 or 3 seconds for preparation. For Chaotic Haze, it's useful for certain enemies like Slags or mini jellies and in some cases, Wolvers. Because they tend to bunch up and it takes them time to attack you. So if the Sprite won't obey, you can still resort to Plan B.
I'd give them a usefulness rating of 8 or 9 if I could get them to obey, but they DO make certain situations less risky.
Seraphynx
Level: 78
Usefulness: 5
Five stars, still rarely does any good (other than perks)
Type: Dragon
Level: 55
Usefulness: -3
Seriously. All the numbers of damage should be replaced with text: ''If this isn't cool, then what is?''
Everything about the dragon is useless and provides no help AT ALL, the attacks are too weak, the final ability does nothing (what is it even supposed to do?)and the only good thing about the dragon is that he looks like a dragon in his ultimates and not like an abomination or an alien bug.
If it weren't for the perks it would be the same as if I hadn't a sprite.
Type: Seraphynx (Seraph)
Level: 32
Usefulness: 7
Novelty: ees so cute /)^3^(\
Putting 3 skill points into "Extra Hearty" for the heart attack makes the skill very useful for getting hearts from a small crowd of easy to kill enemies. The light beam attack, while not much of a heavy hitter, hits often and pushes enemies around allowing me to step in for an easy kill on normally tougher enemies to hit (Like the robot knights). Its also a good crowd control attack for limiting enemy routes and controlling the movement of the battlefield.
Now if I could only remember to USE the dang abilities, I would be far better off :P
Battle sprite: Carlose (aka Punmancor)
Level: 5th grader
Usefulness: 10
Skill one: Pun'ishment.
I love the high hit rate and flinch it causes and the fact I can make the AoE larger by leveling up Shout. I also like how I can make the stun stronger and the tics deal more damage aswell.
Skill two: Dramatic Pause
I love it. The ability to make all enimies agroed on me get stunned AND shocked. I only wish it that the static strength and stun were leveled together instead of being seperate skill point sections but its fair I guess. That forces enemies in the AoE to be agro'd on me would be useless if it didn't have such a short cool down. It works well with the other 2 skills making it work like a supportive skill to the other two. I'm glad focus was replaced with Gaurd Dropping "Comedy", the skill point that reduces their status resistance and defense.
Skill three: Wise Crack
Normally a skill that caused an AoE as large as a 5 star mist bomb that forces enemies in the AoE to be agro'd on me would be useless if it didn't have such a short cool down. It works well with the other 2 skills making it work like a supportive skill to the other two. I'm glad focus was replaced with Gaurd Dropping "Comedy", the skill point that reduces their status resistance and defense.
- Maskerwraith (Nightfang)
- Level 100 + all the perks
- Usefulness: ~8
- All ze Harnesses
Ultimate Skill choices:
- Vengeful Quills
- Vengeful Shadow Cloak
- Chaotic Haze
Let's go through the skills one by one.
Vengeful Quills: On it's own, it's so-so. Reason I say so is because it's entirely a support ability. Sure, it does damage, but how much damage it does is dependant on you. Enemies have a hard limit of 4 quills that can be stuck on them at any time, and the Maskerwraith shoots 11. This means that in order to capitalize on damage, one would need to use this ability in the case where the enemies are being hit rapidly. Either by your own sources or a team member's. Some things that come to mind include Voltaic Tempest, Dark Retribution, Autogun lines, Cutter line swords, anything fast.
Now, with Vengeful, this means that theoretically, the damage of the quills doubles, assuming you can get all the quills to land, and then have all of the bouncing quills also land. Tricky to do alright, but if done, this is adding ~170 damage to each quill that lands. Not to mention the poison. Do some simple math, and that's theoretically up to 3740 damage, from one ability, with a short cooldown.
Vengeful Shadow Cloak: I think the people above me can attest to how good the cloak is. Let me talk about the ultimate. Right now... it could be better, but it is still a perk. Currently, it works by whenever you exit cloak, you create a blast bomb sized explosion around you, which does no damage, but sends enemies a bit away from you with a chance to stun. This seems pretty meh at first, but if you think of applications, it has some cases where it rivals Deadly Shadow Cloak.
Take an arena, the last room, last wave. Usually, lots of mechas, few other kinds, and menders. A smart person targets the menders first. They usually migrate to the middle of the room, the hardest spot to safely get to. No longer the case when alone. And now, when you come out of cloak, everyone around you gets moved away and (possibly) stunned. Now because of how big the blast zone is, if you hit the mender with a sword, he doesn't get pushed away. Hit both menders with a Gran Faust, and things are in business.
Chaotic Haze: The haze itself is pretty good, just watch out for the screen effects that are caused by it. Chaotic, from what I tested, currently is the superior ultimate. Haunted isn't reliable enough and does cruddy damage anyways. So we go with random status effects. Seems trivial at first, until you manage to land a curse on something like... oh... a silkwing.
That's when this ultimate really shines.
Battle Sprite: Maskeraith/Canine-Jr (is there infinite name changes?)
Level: 3 but have not used any SP.
Usefullness: 5
Novelty: 9
It more fun then usefull at the moment. Kinda like Shield Bash.