Sakura
Don't think blindly, there is nothing strange about this appearance.
Basic Info
- No: 40
- Ship: Sakura
- Affinity: Armor Piercing
- Type: Defensive
- Main Weapon: Edge Projector
- Aura: Barrier
- Zen: Teleport
- Rarity: Super Rare
- Price: 3000
- Main Description: 11 projectiles that simultaneously spawn side-by-side for 1s before accelerating forward together and then dealing damage.
- Upgrade Info:
| Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Ult |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DPS | 30.00 | 31.50 | 33.00 | 34.50 | 36.00 | 37.50 |
- Test Results:
| Main | Aura | Zen | Survival | Survival Tier | Speedrun | Speedrun Tier | Fun | Fun Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 68.18 | 72.00 | 98.18 | 38.18 | B+ | 16.91 | C | 25.64 | C |
| APEX1 | APEX2 | Base Score | Base Rank | Low Score | Hi Score | Apex Rank | Final Score | FinalRank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32.00 | 68.36 | 238.36 | 64 | 270.36 | 306.73 | 55 | 387.45 | 65 |
- Main Weapon Illustration:
Survival
- Sakura relies on spamming the smallest barriers possible to keep it alive.
- Ironically, big barriers are its downfall. Energy is thus sometimes, ironically your enemy.
- The strategy is to use TP to get you out of sticky situations. Then when you land at your new spot, immediately deploy your very small barrier.
- After which, go behind the barrier (push closer to the bottom of the screen). The Phase Out of barrier has the capability to block off many bullets.
- This is why you need to keep barriers as small as possible. A large barrier traps more bullets inside and makes it hard to get behind your barrier. It also wastes more particles.
- Be careful of your exit on the way out as MIRVs can explode outside and pellets will head towards where you exit.
- Only deploy your barriers when the spinners or the MIRV Bloomers fire. Deploying early will destroy your barriers and thus deplete your energy on field too quickly.
- Stay at the bottom of the field. Only TP a bit further upfield to grab enough particles to deploy another small barrier.
- Do not worry much about aiming. The high DPS of Sakura will do its job properly. So long you are not at the extreme left or right edge of the field, you should be fine.
- 3 bursts of Edge Projectors (with nearly all the swords landing properly) kill an Armored Eagle. Use this to your advantage to eliminate them quickly before they flood the field.
- Using Sakura on Armor General missions can be tricky, but the trick is to use the smallest barriers when faced with laser fire, as the smallest barriers will block out a full laser burst. The high DPS of Sakura should be able to sustain Sakura a steady flow of particles for a constant stream of small barriers.
- Grazing dart lanes will also work well to get barriers ready for a laser burst.
Speedrun
- The highest DPS in the game means Sakura can wreck quite fast.
- However, it has no other offensive means. This means the pure DPS is it's only way to go fast.
- Being a defensive ship that is more focused on survival instead of killing, it can be difficult to aim correctly. Generally you just let the Edge Projectors do their job while you focus on yourself.
- In initial waves (Acts 1-3), you can deploy your barriers upfield. This allows you to aim properly. Predictive killing is of absolute essence for Sakura if you want to optimize it.
Fun
- Sakura has admittedly one of the coolest weapons in the game, producing neatly aligned swords. The hilts even have a mini Sakura on it.
- Although it looks like it, the swords don't actually do piercing damage, although it would be cool. But the random scattering of swords after they hit their target is also really cool.
- Unfortunately, aside from its cool looking main, there's nothing much else going for it.
Trivia
- Sakura's main weapon is a reference to Senbonzakura, the swords are made from blossoms.
- Sakura Phi is one of the 4 apexes that have an additional hidden change to it, reducing the number of swords from 11 to 7, as well as changing the hilts' design to that of a Phoenix.
- The dev initially viewed Sakura as a strong ship. To quote "the delayed fire would make it challenging, but we assumed TP would be one of the better and more advanced abilities".
APEX 1
- Name: Double Teleport
- Type: Zen
- Description: Enables an instant charge for a second Teleport directly upon arrival.
- Interpretation: The charging for the second Teleport will be completed instantly after the first one.
- Form: Epsilon
- Price: 25000
- Score: 2.00 / 5
This decorated samurai in metallic armor is invincible in MIRV/Shuriken missions. The first TP allows you to very safely go upfield to grab JUST the right amount of particles needed for a minimum deployable barrier which is what Sakura requires, instead of big barriers since that will hinder its survival instead. Simply leave yourself upfield for a while after the first TP (let the completed 2nd TP charge run), then look at the barrier Aura size. Once it’s enough, you must very quickly TP back down to place the barrier before it gets any larger. There are times where it gets quite crowded in particles upfield, so pick a suitable spot so you don’t gain particles too fast, or do an immediate 2nd TP so that you don’t accumulate Aura too fast. The best thing is, if there is a lack of particles, it is of no matter for this samurai! Just TP into a spot where you either have a lot of shurikens around you, or a spot where you can explode a lot of MIRVs at once. Simply leave yourself there and let the 2nd TP charge run, and the grazing from the slowed time will give you enough Aura for a minimum barrier, with enough reaction time to extract yourself before you die. Invincible!
In early waves, this apex can also be used to deploy normal huge barriers upfield, to take advantage of a double Phase Out duration of both inner and outer barriers. Just remember that the window of time to deploy the large barrier after the first TP and the 2nd TP being ready is very small, thus you have to be very careful not to deploy it before you TP the 1st time, and not be too slow until you miss the 2nd TP. This move is so safe and you can dump the barrier anytime you wish (after one burst of swords has spawned of course).
Despite the layout of daily missions rendering barrier placements very difficult without eating too much particles and thus wasting too much of them, Sakura’s Double TP is perfect under these circumstances, enabling you to dump barriers upfield very quickly before TP-ing out to preserve particles for more barriers later on. The considerably lackluster DPS of Sakura, having no other means to destroy invaders, means that the bullet density in later Acts will destroy barriers too quickly, leaving you without protection. However, Sakura Epsilon has a secret technique: Threat Containment Protocol. Double TP is able to precisely place barriers wherever you want and then quickly get out. This means you can find a spot with the highest density of bullets and place a barrier inside there to contain the threat. It can also be placed around high tier turrets to stop their threat very briefly. In addition, while diving in to place a barrier to contain dart tracking turrets, in order to avoid getting shot point blank, you can TP in, place the barrier, and quickly swipe out of the barrier so that you have time to decide where you will land after the second TP. This takes practice but is extremely useful, as demonstrated in Act 5.
APEX 2
- Name: Explosive Arrival
- Type: Zen
- Description: Arrival EMP has been modulated to also deal damage to Invaders in its range.
- Interpretation: Deals 30 damage to Invaders within a range of 50 from the arrival point.
- Form: Phi
- Price: 45000
- Score: 4.27 / 5
- Main Weapon Illustration:
This apex also tightens the spread of its Edge Projector, reducing the number of swords per burst from 11 to 7, making each sword deal more damage. Each sword is now enough to destroy a Sparrow (as opposed to 2 swords needed to destroy one).
A pretty awkward apex to use, the Explosive TP can be used dangerously to get right into the thick of the action and heavily damage Ravens before quickly extracting yourself from the mess of shurikens and MIRV pellets back into your barrier placed downfield. The real risk usually comes in the random bullets already there before the explosion of MIRVs, as swiping a path inbetween the MIRVs with a small leeway distance is able to get past the pellets released before they spread out. The increased damage of the Edge Projectiles also kills Sparrows with one of it, making Sakura a little less annoying to play. However, hitting a Raven straight on will also eliminate it, making it usually more ideal to aim between Raven crowds so as to eliminate as many of them after dealing explosive TP damage.