Banshee
It fits the name of the Banshee very well: it looks calm, but it hides murderous intent.
A female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by screaming, wailing, shrieking, or keening.
Basic Info
- No: 89
- Ship: Banshee
- Affinity: Shield Breaking
- Type: Full Offense (FO)
- Main Weapon: Stormbringer
- Aura: Goliath Missile
- Zen: Focus Lance
- Rarity: Super Rare
- Price: 3000
- Main Description: 18 homing missiles.
- Upgrade Info:
| Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Ult |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DPS | 20.00 | 21.00 | 22.00 | 23.00 | 24.00 | 25.00 |
- Test Results:
| Main | Aura | Zen | Survival | Survival Tier | Speedrun | Speedrun Tier | Fun | Fun Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85.91 | 76.36 | 73.09 | 25.64 | C | 37.09 | A- | 38.73 | A- |
| APEX1 | APEX2 | Base Score | Base Rank | Low Score | Hi Score | Apex Rank | Final Score | FinalRank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43.64 | 61.09 | 235.36 | 66 | 279.00 | 296.45 | 67 | 397.91 | 60 |
- Main Weapon Illustration:
Comments
- hank: I recommend this ship if you want to start Goliath Missile, and it's better with Phi's bullet-clearing effect. You will feel good if you can play it well.
- 菁鸟: An advice from a Sigma Banshee player: Buy the Phi.
Survival
- With no forms of defence capabilities, being stuck means you are dead.
- The low DPS of Banshee doesn't help you out at all, and the fact that the Stormbringer missiles can be quite wild and go all over the place helps at nothing, especially turret popping.
- It also doesn't help at all that the missiles' aiming can be quite bad and their curvy pathing can even cause them to miss smaller invaders such as Sparrows.
- This means that while you also need to go upfield to hide from bullet and laser fire, your main can actually miss invaders on the way up.
- Although FL is able to pop off a turret on a Vulture, I won't recommend it since the unprotected health of a Shielded Vulture is not high enough for FL to cool down completely to fire it again at the start of the next wave. That being said, it might be a good idea to use it against Condors and Rocs to pop off their turrets, although you would more likely be busy dodging instead.
Speedrun
- Despite the low DPS, that really isn't the main point of Banshee. The double AoE damage of Banshee can be quite devastating.
- Although Banshee does have two forms of AoE damage, the amazing fact is that they do not compete with each other at all if you know what you are doing.
- The technique is before the next waves comes in, throw 2 or 3 GMs at one side of the field, and then quickly head over to the other side of the field and charge FL. The combo will wreck Ravens on both sides and leave none or very few remaining. It even wrecks Sparrows due to the blast of GMs, although the side that you used FL may still have a few remaining Sparrows.
- With all or almost all your AoE damage exhausted, you can do whatever you like now and flail about the field and let the main finish off the job.
- In some cases, because the wave may be slightly heavier with Herons or Eagles upfield, you can then go upfield and shove a GM (or 2 if you manage to get another charge on your way up) right into their faces.
- While the main certainly sounds weak, against a large invader such as a Vulture, one burst of the main can quickly strip the Vulture.
Fun
- With double forms of AoE damage, and a Aura Zen combination that actually does not compete with each other, Banshee is actually very fun to use.
- Its rate of invader obliteration can be pretty fast when both forms of AoE damage are put to work.
- After the initial obliteration of invaders of exhausting your AoE damage options, the rest is pretty stress free since the main is auto aiming.
Trivia
- Banshee was only introduced into Phoenix 2 at v5.0.
- Banshee was one of only 2 ships that only had one apex when it was first released. The Phi Apex was only available at v5.0.
- The Sigma Apex was subsequently introduced at v5.0.1.
APEX 1
- Name: Expert Focus
- Type: Zen
- Description: Launches Focus Lance even faster and recovers it more quickly.
- Interpretation: The charge time decreases from 0.35s to 0.25s, the recovery time decreases from 4.5s to 3.5s.
- Form: Sigma
- Price: 35000
- Score: 2.73 / 5
The capability to spam more FLs helps Banshee in achieving a bit more speed. While it is certainly fun to spam FL twice as much (Normal FL requires 2 bursts of Stormbringer, while Expert Focus allows FL to be fired again at base time after only 1 burst), by the time the second FL is fired, all the Ravens are pretty much gone from the combination of the first FL and a couple of GMs. This makes the second FL only useful in the wave is a light wave, as you can fire FL again in the next wave. It can also help for very dense and heavy waves, but most of the time you would spend your time dodging instead. The last purpose of the second FL is to pop off turrets on a Vulture, where it does a pretty good job. Otherwise, the buff is not significant at all and will not help you survive better.
APEX 2
- Name: Disintegrator Warhead
- Type: Aura
- Description: Destroys enemy bullets caught in the blast.
- Interpretation: Clears all the bullets within the blast radius of about 150.
- Form: Phi
- Price: 45000
- Score: 3.82 / 5
This apex precisely gives Banshee the bullet clearance it needs to survive a bullet hell. Although Banshee is still pretty fast with double forms of AoE damage, because they all deal pretty low damage, it may still leave a couple of invaders, particularly larger ones behind which still can pump a lot of bullets onto the field. The huge radius of GM means a huge bullet clearance. Because of the capability to clear bullets, you will want to keep 1 or 2 GMs at hand after firing off most of them at the start of the wave to help you last throughout the wave, especially if the wave is a heavy wave.