Stun EMP

Release an EMP that stuns all turrets within range.

High skill Aura, only recommended for more experienced players. Works best in dense waves.

The details of this skill are listed as follows:

Level	1	2	3	4	5	Ultimate
Max Stun Time (s)	2.0	2.25	2.5	2.75	3.0	3.0
Max Radius	450	~	~	~	~	~

• Ultimate: Deals a maximum of 10 damage to all invaders in its range when fired.
• Score: 8.09 / 10
• Useful Levels: 1, Ult
• Priority Level: 2 / 8
• Illustration: The first one shows how to stun enemy turrets; The second one shows how to deal damage to invaders.

Comments

• Editor: It’s amazing how quickly they fix burnt things, right?
• ☀🐕: A balanced Aura with decent strength.

Usage

A Level 1 SEMP is generally not enough to do any useful stunning for its true intended purposes. However, a Level 1 SEMP works very well to reset spinners, MIRV Bloomers and lasers just like BEMP. Used in small quantities, SEMP can make a big difference in your survivability at level 1. The fact that SEMP does not increase in radius means it is quite far reaching, very useful for resetting multiple turrets. It is thus used as precision turret stopping tool. If you predict a mess of bullets headed your way, stun a group of turrets to lighten the load of bullets. At level 1, SEMP also becomes a pseudo dodging tool, as the time slowdown from the smallest SEMP can make all the difference in dodging between a tight gap.

However, once you reach higher levels, the true purpose of SEMP is realized. SEMP is now a pre-emptive usage, and you should almost always use it when the wave fully arrives, and not waiting for spinners, MIRV Bloomers and lasers to start firing. SEMP now gives you near absolute freedom (with only the bullets from the previous wave being of hindrance, if any) in navigation. The time slowdown effect of SEMP is also significant and lasts quite some time; this allows you to carefully navigate out of the mess of bullets left behind in the previous wave and start your assault. This is when it's true purpose comes about, during this time you have to eliminate smaller invaders first, in order to refill your SEMP quickly. The recommended elimination order is Ravens then Herons. Sparrows are of no issue as the SEMP blast would had killed them with the ult upgrade. (If you don't have the ult however, Sparrows before Ravens) With the absolute freedom to move around granted, this means going around larger invaders to destroy smaller targets. When you have eliminated sufficient smaller invaders, you would have gained back a full or near full Aura. Using SEMP is like a tactical strategic puzzle, figure out a solution, more specifically a sequence of killing invaders to solve the wave. Learn to utilize the initial time slowdown properly to quickly figure out the solution while avoiding the bullets from the last wave.

Now this is when it requires experience. You need to fire SEMP before the invaders are free of the stun and start firing bullets again. However, you do not want to waste the previous SEMP duration as they do not stack. How it works is each SEMP blast has its own countdown timer, so when only one has finished countdown, it does not matter. The invaders are only free of stun after all SEMP countdowns have reached zero. Allowing the invaders to be free of stun, even for just a millisecond, spells disaster as bullets can go flying around in all directions making navigation difficult. The fast refilling nature of SEMP means that killing rapidly is essential, and that can only be achieved with waves with large small invader crowds. This is extremely beneficial in daily missions that often feature very dense waves, often allowing you to keep invaders continually stunned as you wipe out the gazillion Ravens on field. For dense and heavy waves, you might need to take caution, but an SEMP should always be launched immediately so that bullets don't go flying about wildly. Bear in mind that the relatively small AoE damage of SEMP means that there may not be enough time to keep the wave continuously stunned, particularly for heavy waves. When you are about to anticipate a heavy wave, keep the particles from light and medium waves so that you have spare particles to keep the invaders of a heavy wave continually stunned.

On the other hand, when faced with a wave with only Eagles and/or higher, then SEMP should be only used when such dangerous turrets are about to fire. If there is no such turret, feel free to use it immediately and just proceed to pick off the most dangerous turrets on field first.

As mentioned above, if the invader crowd is not sufficient to sustain the continuous usage of SEMP, you run into problems post stun where bullets start flying around in all directions. It then becomes a tactical puzzle to quickly draw up a plan to eliminate what you can in that time period, and head back to where you started from to prevent bullets from flying around in all directions. This, of course, applies only when there are dart tracking turrets or boomerangs.

The extreme density of waves in daily missions make SEMP extremely viable. You can simply continually sustain the stun as you fire an SEMP, take out invaders progressively from one side to the other, focusing on the smaller ones first. However, be sure to not overeat particles especially when you are anticipating a heavy wave next. For light waves, a single SEMP should be enough to take it out, and it should supply sufficient particles for the next wave to be stun on first sight. Particularly, 5-4 is most in need of multiple SEMPs, so be sure to conserve particles so that you can keep the final wave continually stunned. Proper management of particles will allow you to deploy SEMP at least 3 times on 5-4. Bear in mind the relatively low AoE damage of SEMP mean that you need to rely on your main weapon or any other offensive Zens to quickly take out invaders to sustain SEMPs.

Because of how the smallest SEMPs will reset any turret, it is extremely useful against spinners, and even DD weapons. You can completely prevent them from firing at all. Particularly, it should be used to render DDMBs pretty much useless as you stun it, allowing complete freedom to kill off invaders and turrets without worrying about the big boom.

However, SEMP's biggest weakness is against MIRV Deathonators. Their large range which destroys all or if not almost all Sparrows on screen leaves a big mess of pellets on screen. Unless SEMP is backed up by a Zen option (such as REMP or PS) that can clear bullets, do not happily use SEMP to clear the entire screen of Sparrows with MIRV Deathonators as that will only spell disaster for the next wave. Instead, use SEMP at one corner of the field and leave a few Sparrows alive. Alternatively, just eliminate the Sparrows without using SEMP at all. While ML may also work as a backup option to clear up the mess of pellets, be careful to launch SEMP very early and retreat all the way to the bottom of the screen. Also, make sure the next wave after this Sparrow infested wave is actually worthwhile to use ML.

You will no longer be using SEMP as a pseudo dodging tool. Or at least, it is extremely rare as SEMP is not designed as a last minute resort, but a pre-emptive use Aura. SEMP is also quite an effective AoE damage tool, with its extremely huge radius you can deal huge overall damage over a large crowd of invaders. Its fast refilling nature also means continuous AoE damage in such crowd heavy situations, resulting in quicker eliminations to sustain the stun.

APEX 1: High Damage

• Game Description: Increased distortion of the Stun EMP causes even more damage to Invaders.
• Numeric Interpretation: The max damage increases from 10 to 15.
• Score: 4.64 / 5
• Ships with the APEX: Cinnri (Tau), NC-150 (Gamma), Nimbus (Sigma), Photurius (Tau), Zimitr (Delta)

Editor: Higher damage, crazier output.

This apex increases the maximum damage dealt by SEMP from 10 to 15.

This apex helps when you are faced with massive invader crowds, as the continuous usage of SEMP and thus continuous stunning of invaders after killing just a few more Ravens or Sparrows helps a lot in the DPS and thus killing off the remaining invader crowds much faster. It is also extremely useful in early waves where a significantly smaller SEMP is able to kill Sparrows. For many SEMP ships with this apex, they also rely on SEMP damage to quickly destroy the invaders, in which case, SEMP doubles up as a very effective huge AoE damage tool, rather than simply being a tool to stun invaders. As it is very easy to abuse SEMP in daily missions, the bump up in damage in SEMP, when added up, accounting for the gazillion invaders on field, quickly means how much faster invaders get decimated in dense waves, and even the heavy waves if there exists Herons or smaller.

APEX 2: Extended Range

• Game Description: Increased power extends the range of the EMP.
• Numeric Interpretation: The max radius increases from 450 to 500.
• Score: 2.27 / 5
• Ships with the APEX: Mist Star (Gamma), Torrent (Alpha)

Editor: It's mostly useless; I can't think of much to comment on.

As an APEX that only increases range, its improvement is too limited. The fact is, you don't need this extra 50 radius to stun more enemies; you can compensate for it through your actions (translate: don't always rely on releasing your aura at the bottom). The only thing that might be slightly helpful to you is that the expansion speed of the radius will be a bit faster, but this won't make a big difference either.

APEX 3: Strong Stun

• Game Description: EMP is optimized for critical systems of Invaders to increase the stun duration.
• Numeric Interpretation: The max stun time increases from 3s to 4s.
• Score: 1.73 / 5
• Ships with the APEX: Mist Star (Lambda)

Editor: Huh? Why do I need an extra second of stun?

An extra second of stun simply means an extra round of main weapon output, nothing more. Its improvement is also very limited; you can't expect much difference just from an extra round of main weapon output. For very dense waves, one round of main weapon can at most kill a raven, and then you are surrounded by bullets. Overall, it's still a marginal improvement at best.