Photurius
A solid sense of impact, flashing like fireflies when attacking
Basic Info
- No: 29
- Ship: Photurius
- Affinity: Armor Piercing
- Type: Close Combat
- Main Weapon: Photon Charge
- Aura: Stun EMP
- Zen: Mega Laser
- Rarity: Rare
- Price: 1500
- Main Description: 6 super speed projectiles fired from the front with a slow divergence rate.
- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 99.55 | 97.09 | 90.55 | 36.00 | B | 38.73 | A | 39.27 | A- |
| APEX1 | APEX2 | Base Score | Base Rank | Low Score | Hi Score | Apex Rank | Final Score | FinalRank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48.00 | 74.18 | 287.18 | 24 | 335.18 | 361.36 | 16 | 475.36 | 19 |
- Main Weapon Illustration:
Survival
- Photurius' survivability unfortunately comes from the fact that it is very fast. Killing quickly is of absolute essence.
- Always attempt to pull off an ML at the start of a medium (or above) wave.
- Otherwise, SEMP should always be fired immediately no matter what, even though there may be Vultures with spinners at the back. By killing fast, you will refill your Aura quickly enough (from the invaders killed in front) to fire off the next SEMP just as the spinners at the back are about to fire.
- SEMP should be quickly followed by an ML if you are unable to pull off an ML at the start of the wave, after proper re-positioning (accounting for the first burst of bullets which are generally difficult to avoid them coming in).
- Due to its wide spread main, Photurius is unable to pop turrets off. You can however, potentially go right up to dangerous turrets in larger invaders such as Vultures and try to pop them off before the stun wears off, but there's no guarantee it'll work very well.
- The same can be done on Rocs and Condors as well, just be very careful. For a Roc, you want to fire SEMP as you dash forward to go behind to stun all the turrets, and then collect particles on the way up so that you can launch a 2nd SEMP to head over to the other side of turrets on the back row to pop them off. At the end of the process, all the back turrets of the Roc should be gone. Watch out for the front row turrets if they can turn behind fast enough to aim at you.
Speedrun
- A highly damaging main, coupled with ML means this beast goes really fast.
- It's a good idea to use the small lag time after firing off an SEMP to reposition yourself, as this allows one burst of the main to go off before charging ML.
- In heavier and/or dense waves, you will definitely need a second ML. Start charging the 2nd ML after you launch a 2nd SEMP (the 1st SEMP being when you fire the 1st ML).
- The freedom to move around after firing SEMP means the freedom to reposition yourself to say, in front of an Eagle's or Vulture's cockpit to deal maximum damage to it such that none of its projectiles are wasted.
- Generally, it takes 2 SEMPs before you can divide one burst of the main between 2 Ravens to take them out immediately. In some lucky cases, one SEMP and dividing the main's burst between 2 Ravens is sufficient, but don't count on these lucky cases.
- Because Photurius' main is considered pretty infrequent, you will need to fake charge ML in the transition to a light wave so that you don't waste the powerful bursts of Photurius.
Fun
- Photurius has a very satisfying main that goes POOF, eliminating a couple of Ravens along with it every burst.
- The highly spammable nature of SEMP and highly damaging main makes Photurius gameplay very fast paced and very fun.
Trivia
- Photurius was considered one of the real horsemen in the pre-v3.5 update due to the ridiculously long SEMP stun time (5s) and the ridiculously fast ML recovery time (very fast).
APEX 1
- Name: Double Shot
- Type: Zen
- Description: Two separate energy releases create two beams in quick succession.
- Interpretation: Two 100-damage lasers will be fired one by one, with a one-second interval.
- Form: Lambda
- Price: 30000
- Score: 3.00 / 5
The Double ML allows Photurius to better deal against larger invader turrets, in the case where Photurius is unable to take it down before its dangerous turrets fire. Thus, since a Vulture typically has 2 more dangerous turrets, Double ML allows it to take them out immediately before it becomes too hard for you to handle the bullet mess. In particular, the Double ML could had been a lifesaver at a Roc, where taking out the 2 turrets (in this case, a dart tracking turret) immediately allows it to quickly focus on the back turrets of the Roc, which are generally very deadly, and needs to be taken out before you run out of particles to stop them. In this case, only the dart turrets hindered Photurius from going behind to take out the behind darts and thus it was necessary to take them out first.
APEX 2
- Name: High Damage
- Type: Aura
- Description: Increased distortion of the Stun EMP causes even more damage to Invaders.
- Interpretation: The max damage increases from 10 to 15.
- Form: Tau
- Price: 40000
- Score: 4.64 / 5
Because of the constant need for Photurius to keep the invaders stunned, this apex turns Photurius into a monstrous damage dealer from both an insane AoE damage and standard damage from its high DPS. It will deal with both crowds and large invaders easily, so long, you can keep them stunned. For large invaders, it would still play like normal Photurius, but for crowds, this apex now makes it easy to deal with such situations.