Exarch

The almighty genius of Shielded missions until the coming of Jeria.

Basic Info

• No: 57
• Ship: Exarch
• Affinity: Shield Breaking
• Type: Full Offense (FO)
• Main Weapon: Phase Prisms
• Aura: Vorpal Lance
• Zen: Mega Laser
• Rarity: Super Rare
• Price: 3000
• Main Description: Continuous beam lasers, each laser tracks invaders independently.
• Upgrade Info:

Level	1	2	3	4	5	Ult
DPS	27.50	28.88	30.25	31.63	33.00	34.38

• Test Results:

Main	Aura	Zen	Survival	Survival Tier	Speedrun	Speedrun Tier	Fun	Fun Tier
102.27	110.18	90.55	34.36	B	50.73	A+	49.64	S

APEX1	APEX2	Base Score	Base Rank	Low Score	Hi Score	Apex Rank	Final Score	FinalRank
45.09	55.27	303.00	15	348.09	358.27	18	493.00	14

• Main Weapon Illustration:

Comments

• Dark骑士: Frequently used in shielded missions in the past, and it's harder and harder to use in the present.

Survival

• Exarch’s unique main works on a range triggered mechanism, where if an invader goes into range of each of its prisms, it will fire. The angles of each of the prisms at the front of Exarch, taking upward vertical vector as 0° are: -22°, -17°, -13°, -8°, -4°, -0°, 0°, 4°, 8°, 13°, 17°, 22°. There are also prisms at the back of Exarch, taking the downward vertical vector as 0°, the angles are: -22°, -17°, -11°, 11°, 17°, 22°. There is no angular range of each its prisms, it only fires at that specific angle.
• Exarch is the most versatile FO ship in the game. Despite its FO nature, its Aura and Zen allow it to escape dangerous situations rather well.
• Because you don't really need to aim with Exarch, you can concentrate on dodging and look out for good VL opportunities.
• In particular, VL is an extremely underrated last minute defence. When trapped under a wall of bullets, simply shoot a VL and ride up the VL. It can take a bit of skill, but this solves many barricade issues such as misaligned darts and even tiny shuriken clusters.
• In daily missions, ML will not be used very much. As a general rule of thumb, if you see at least a Heron and an Eagle, or 2 Herons in that column, charge ML. Otherwise, just do a VL sweep.
• Because a VL sweep is usually still viable after firing ML in daily missions, there is no need to ride up the ML. A VL sweep is only not viable if the wave is a medium wave.
• In particular, since Exarch's main is unable to pop turrets off effectively, dangerous turrets such as MIRV Bloomers or spinner pose a big problem for it quickly.
• An ML and 2 VLs almost instantly vaporizes a frontline Vulture. Use this combo as much as possible. If there are high Mk MIRV Bloomers on the frontline Vulture that fire nearly instantly after it arrives, add in a 3rd VL for instant kill.
• Sometimes, in community and specialist missions, it may be a good idea to go above frontline invaders if they are not deadly enough (they don't have dart tracking turrets) to immediately prioritize destroying a deadly Vulture at the back. Charge ML further up as the wave comes in if such a scenario occurs. This technique is also viable for speedrunning.
• Exarch will struggle with big invaders such as Condors and Rocs due to its inability to pop turrets off. Be sure to prepare your full arsenal of 4 VLs for such battles as your only defence.
• VLs can be used to pop dangerous turrets off, but VLs are not plentiful so be careful with its usage. VLs are primarily used to clear out Ravens.
• Exarch is unable to deal with lasers. Your only hope is to use VL to either inch your way out, or use VL to pop these laser turrets off (be sure to let the main strip the shield first though). But most of the deadlier lasers are with Ravens which are cleared out by VLs. Fast tracking lasers from Condors and Rocs spell its doom though.
• As Exarch comes equipped with butt lasers (laser prisms equipped at the bottom side of Exarch), it can continue to deal damage even while completely dodging most of the forward firing turrets and being all the way at the top of the field, which allows it to be viable for laser missions. However, a VL sweep is usually enough to eliminate majority of the threat.

Speedrun

• It is of no contest that the fastest Shielded mission ship is Exarch. With its perfect balance of crowd clearing VL and single target damage dealing ML, it is incredibly versatile in dealing with the varied circumstances General Shield missions generally throw at players.
• In MIRV/Shuriken missions, however, you must be extremely skilled to pull it off. Sweeping extremely fast, and knowing how to ride VL effectively is essential. Such a mission with MIRV Bloomers is unfortunately not viable for Exarch.
• Perfect optimization of the main is key in early waves, and also in the ending of later waves. Always aim to have as many laser prisms active as possible. Remember that the laser prisms are rather sparse at the centre of Exarch so position Exarch inbetween invaders on both sides. When left with one side of invaders (or one invader) and not having any VLs to use, scan through the invaders, shake from left to right and then the opposite way (repeat where necessary) of the invaders to maximize all its laser prisms at both sides of Exarch firing at that single invader.
• Fast reactions and wave composition knowledge are what makes Exarch pros so quick. As the wave comes in, a VL can be pre-fired milliseconds before the wave fully arrives such that the Ravens immediately disppear. In daily missions, this not only involves pre-firing but very quick VL sweeping to minimize the RNG of invader movement.
• 3 VLs vaporize an Eagle. Wait for at least 2 Eagles to align together and then quickly throw 3 VLs to vaporize them. If the Eagles separate, well, sadly you just don't have the luck there.
• As there are often waves where more than one VLs need to be fired, be prepared to move really fast to your next location to fire off the next VLs. There is hardly time to think. Sometimes it's hope and pray that when there are dense Raven clouds, you would fire 3 or 4 VLs and hope that each VL is spaced equally apart. Failure to move fast means the Ravens may move apart for a less ideal VL.
• In community and specialist missions, aim to ML every wave Act 4 and above and ML once every 2 waves in Act 3.
• Charge ML at the extreme bottom of the field if there are bigger invaders such as Eagles or Vultures present whenever possible. Really. Even when VL first seems a better opportunity due to dense Ravens clouds, the pure damage from a ML is much better dealt to a big invader.
• The remaining Ravens after the fired ML can be dealt with later. This part is a little RNG based as you have to wait for a good line-up to occur again. Try to bypass the Ravens in the meantime, although it is inevitable that they do get in the way sometimes.
• Exarch is one of the more straightforward FO ships to use due to an easier to use main weapon, although the RNG from VL line-ups can get annoying.
• When faced with a large invader such as a Vulture or above, get as close as you can to it to maximize the side prisms firing as well.
• Rarely, the remaining smaller invaders in front of a Vulture are of little threat and they have no dart tracking turrets, plus, the Vulture may not have very threatening dart tracking turrets itself. In this case, you can wretch yourself in between the 2 layers of invaders. This allows you to utilize the few butt lasers on Exarch to destroy the probably already damaged fronline invaders. These butt lasers are not considered as part of Exarch's DPS, thus increasing Exarch damage even further beyond ludicrous levels. The opportunities of such situations are extremely rare though.

Fun

• Exarch has one of the most satisfying main weapons in the game. It is the probably the most visually appealing weapon in the game, being a literal laser light show where lasers are fired in apparent random sequence.
• Not to mention, the laser impact sounds are very satisfying as well.
• Because of its speedrunning status, and that Exarch is one of the easier speedrunning ships to pick up, Exarch is really fun to go fast, even for not too experienced players.
• Vaporizing a frontline Vulture almost instantly/instantly with an ML and 2 (or 3 for instant) VLs is incredibly satisfying.
• VL by itself is already incredibly satisfying, and given how quickly you generally progress through the waves, VL influx is pretty fast.

Trivia

• Exarch was only introduced into Phoenix 2 at v2.2.
• Exarch has the most unique weapon in the game. It can be described containing 18 instant tracking weapons (at maxed level) squeezed into one ship which have only a straight line firing cone. As I might describe it, it is like "18 disintegrator lasers (main weapon of Nimbus) fitted into one ship at different angles.”
• It is the only near 360° weapon coverage ship that does not have a homing weapon. A lot of players are actually unaware of the fact that Exarch has lasers equipped at the back of the ship.
• Exarch has probably the loudest main weapon in the game, particularly when nearly all of its front lasers are fired at the same time.
• Exarch is featured in a 3D perspective in the web version of the Phoenix 2 reddit page.

APEX 1

• Name: High Capacity
• Type: Aura
• Description: Vorpal Lance can store more energy, adding an additional Counter.
• Interpretation: The max volume increases from 4 to 5.
• Form: Epsilon
• Price: 25000
• Score: 2.82 / 5

To be honest, the Exarch probably doesn't need such an APEX. But considering that the combination of the Mega Laser and the Vorpal Lance can quickly clear a wave of invaders, sometimes there will indeed be more energy to charge for the fifth lance. When you find that you need a fifth lance to face an attack, first think about whether there is a better solution, whether it is necessary to use 5 lances (such as lance scanning), and whether you can use fewer lances to achieve the same effect. Secondly, the improvement brought by another APEX that strengthens the main weapon - Phase Refraction - is generally more obvious than the effect of one more lance.

APEX 2

• Name: Phase Refraction
• Type: Main Weapon
• Description: Phase Prisms can fire on targets within a wider angle.
• Interpretation: nan
• Form: Omega
• Price: 50000
• Score: 3.45 / 5
• Main Weapon Illustration:

This apex gives each of the prisms a small angular range instead of simply being fixed at their original angle, thus having a better catch rate for invaders, and even allowing the corner prisms to fire when it normally does not do so when faced with large invaders. The angular range of each prism is about ±2° of the original fixed angle.

The better Phase Prism catch rate of Exarch makes Exarch feel a lot more smooth to play. Sometimes, Sparrows can slip between Phase Prisms which can cause a bit of frustration. This apex fixes that. The better capability of each of the Phase Prisms to catch invaders translate to a slight increase in effective DPS. Particularly, the cornermost Phase Prisms are able to see more action.

Video Illustration