Shogun

Remote real-time homing, but close combat to the extreme.

Basic Info

• No: 68
• Ship: Shogun
• Affinity: Armor Piercing
• Type: Psuedo-FO
• Main Weapon: Phantom Katana
• Aura: Blade Storm
• Zen: Reflex EMP
• Rarity: Super Rare
• Price: 3000
• Main Description: 4 successive instant tracking "beams" (the slashes will continue to travel in a straight line if the targeted invader is destroyed), where the sequence will continue if the pre-determined locked on target is within the 180° forward arc in front of the ship.
• Upgrade Info:

Level	1	2	3	4	5	Ult
DPS	25.00	26.25	27.50	28.75	30.00	31.25

• Test Results:

Main	Aura	Zen	Survival	Survival Tier	Speedrun	Speedrun Tier	Fun	Fun Tier
125.45	105.82	109.09	37.09	B+	57.82	S	54.55	S

APEX1	APEX2	Base Score	Base Rank	Low Score	Hi Score	Apex Rank	Final Score	FinalRank
43.64	78.55	340.36	2	384.00	418.91	1	568.36	1

• Main Weapon Illustration:

Comments

• Dark骑士: This ship with a strong Japanese cultural color of is also one of the first ships to be discovered by speedrun players. Its main weapon is highly recognizable. It is neither a projectile nor a light. Its real-time tracking characteristics are the only one. Both the attack method and the aura tend to change the game mechanics. Its aura reminds me of scenes in anime: Domain expansion - Fukuma Mizushi.
• Dark骑士: Although the real-time tracking main weapon looks awesome, if it just looks awesome, it will not become regular on the leaderboard. The biggest advantage of the Shogun is that the main weapon does not need to change its position in order to hit the turret. This is equivalent to saying that the Shogun has the largest activity space while ensuring its own output in advance. For speedrun players, what they consider is how to convert the space into output. The answer is to graze. It can be said that the Shogun is a grazer. It is also the one that best embodies the game's concept of "turning defense into offense".
• Kite Runner: Shogun can hardly beat other speedrun ships in medium and low-density bullets. If you want to gain an advantage in speedrun, you must have a dense bullet and continuously graze to charge the aura. In addition to experiences and skills, it is also necessary to break the conventional thinking and use more inhuman operations, and survive after death. It can be said that you cannot control it unless you are a master.

Survival

• No defence except REMP. REMP might be a problem in General/Boomerang missions with fast moving darts. However, it can reliably break up continuous streams of pellets.
• Fortunately, you can focus fully on dodging since the main is instant tracking.
• However, since you are unable to control where the main wants to hit, turret popping is an issue.
• Be warned that once Shogun's main is locked on to a target and you go above the target before the slash can fire, Shogun will not fire anything. This can be troublesome and you must head back down to continue the slash sequence.

Speedrun

• With a highly damaging main that requires no aiming, and thus no damage leaking, it can wipe medium to larger size invaders much faster than many AP ships.
• Despite the apparent lackluster damage of Blade Storm, it is highly spammable. This is due to Shogun’s increased energy gained from grazing as compared to other ships. It is also very quick to charge to full size.
• Shogun, like its Phoenix HD predecessor, relies a lot on aggressively grazing bullets to charge up its highly spammable Blade Storm. You can see Blade Storm like a hybrid of MS and LS, in the sense like MS it is disposed of extremely quickly (actually in some cases, even faster than MS since MS requires all its missiles to hit their locked on targets before the next MS is ready) but like LS because it spreads its damage amongst targets quite evenly.
• The somewhat inability to pop turrets off thus works in Shogun's favor in speedrunning due to the bullet spam it is exposed to. In last minute emergencies, REMP is able to save you.
• REMP is always used to open up a wave and deal as much AoE damage as you can. Given that the main is instant tracking, there is usually almost no delay in firing off an REMP and immediately slashing away afterwards. Get in the middle of the action with the highest invader density since there is no risk in damage leaking.
• It is not always a good idea to open up with an REMP at the start of the first wave of an Act. Sometimes, the next wave is more viable to use REMP. In such cases, using Blade Storm is better to clear out the lighter wave. Just as the last katana slash of the main goes off, flick yourself upfield and start charging REMP to have it go off quickly. Adjust the timing if you need.
• Alternatively, it is also possible to prepare yourself in position for a good REMP, wait for the wave to arrive, then trigger Blade Storm before immediately charging REMP. They are able to happen simultaneously. Blade Storm will always last for 0.75s so the remaining 0.15s after REMP has went off can then spread out to the remaining surviving invaders.
• If you are not intending to use REMP that wave, it is advisable to start from the bottom of the screen. Then, activate Blade Storm when the invaders arrive. The range that Blade Storm covers should be the smaller invaders. If you cover too many invaders in the range of Blade Storm, the damage will be too spread out among all the invaders, which often causes several Sparrows to still be alive but damaged, and some Ravens to be not damaged at all. This incurs extra katana slashes which wastes time.
• Thus, slowly push upwards as invaders at the bottom of the field gets cleared of invaders.
• If the wave is front heavy, then it doesn't matter. But that is an opportunity to use REMP instead, unless the waves are back to back.
• Optimizing the main is of absolute essence in early waves of community and specialist missions. As each slash is extremely damaging, Shogun's main will overkill a Sparrow.
• Shogun's inability to fire backwards can become a blessing in disguise in early waves. In particular, when a wave with sparrows arrive, you can hide yourself above all the sparrows and charge an REMP or fire off Blade Storm to prevent the main from hitting Sparrows.
• Optimizing the sequence of 4 slashes is of key in early waves as well. You want the sequence of 4 slashes to end just as you transit to the next Act such that you don't suffer the rather long cooldown time. This involves very careful planning of how you should optimize both Blade Storm and REMP such that the sequence ends correctly when you transit to the next Act. However, always prioritize killing fast rather than waiting for the next slash to occur.
• In some cases, trying to avoid using the main to kill Sparrows is impossible. In such cases, you should attempt to line yourself up to 2 or more Sparrows in line with your reactor as it is possible for the main to kill 2 (even 3!) Sparrows in a row if nicely lined up. It is difficult to do so so don't count on it. But give it a try if you can, since you only pretty much do it in early waves (or late wave when every other invader is dead).

Fun

• Shogun has a very nice rhythm to it due to the sequence of 4 slashes, which makes a very nice rhythmic sound. Each slash sounds quite close to a true samurai's katana slash (you can hear the metallic shing sound).
• Shogun has easily the most spammable Aura. Epsilon Shogun just takes this fun factor even further. Spamming Blade Storm to no end is really fun, continuously double tapping.
• Because there's no need to worry about aiming, you can go right into the middle of the action and launch a very satisfying REMP to damage so many invaders, and the compounded sound of the REMP dealing damage is immensely satisfying.

Trivia

• Shogun was only introduced into Phoenix 2 at v3.1.
• Shogun is one of the 5 ships that got brought over from Phoenix 2's predecessor game, Phoenix HD (Phoenix, Shogun, Trinity, Mirage, Corsair).
• Shogun's Aura is unique to itself. Its Aura also has the highest radius in the game when maxed.
• It would not had been possible to replicate its weapon from Phoenix HD in Phoenix 2, as every slash in Phoenix HD is done on the invaders by one graze of a bullet. The pure volume of bullets in Phoenix 2 would thus make it too OP (For details, please refer to the cool operation of a player using the Shogun in the MIRV Spam mission).
• Just like the katana slashes in the predecessor game Phoenix HD, the color of the slashes change. However, they only change between main weapon level upgrades. The image shows at which level does Shogun's main change color.

APEX 1

• Name: Graze
• Type: Main Weapon
• Description: Grazing enemy projectiles is slightly easier and rewards more energy.
• Interpretation: nan
• Form: Epsilon
• Price: 25000
• Score: 2.73 / 5

This apex increases the amount of Aura gained per graze, as well as slightly increasing the minimum graze distance from a bullet / laser.

The more the bullets, the more blissful it is. Particularly when you have a lot of mostly aligned bullets, this is where this apex shines. It basically encourages and enhances the way Shogun is meant to be played, constantly grazing bullets, since Shogun does already earn slightly more Aura energy from grazing compared to other ships. This apex just takes this increase in Aura energy from grazing even further. As the effect of this apex is more easily felt even by the slightly more average player, this apex is easier to enjoy for a more casual player who just wants to have fun with Shogun. Not to mention, spamming Blade Storm to no end, especially when you place yourself between like 4 lanes of bullets is immensely satisfying. The number of times you can actually spam Blade Storm compared to base Shogun is significantly more in the higher leagues, as well as in community missions, making the effect of this apex actually very significant. It can feel like the number is multiplied by 1.5.

APEX 2

• Name: High Damage
• Type: Zen
• Description: Energy actuators increase the damage of the EMP.
• Interpretation: The damage increases from 20 to 30.
• Form: Sigma
• Price: 35000
• Score: 4.91 / 5

Shogun's ultimate form, which is even more powerful than the other APEX that focuses on grazing bullets. The reason is that the more difficult the mission, the more bullets there are, and when the amount of bullets increases, the effectiveness of grazing has nothing to do with whether to use APEX. In addition, denser bullets also mean that you can't dodge the bullets leisurely, and you need to consider how to destroy the invaders efficiently. Therefore, a high-damage Reflex EMP coupled with a full aura is enough to kill most invaders in a wave. It is indeed more effective than getting a little more aura size by grazing. The final point is that sometimes an extra 10 points of damage (7 points in armor missions) can make a qualitative difference. As the saying goes, it's better to cut off one of the enemy's ten fingers than to injure them. You don't want to leave a lot of invaders with little health on the screen, right?

Video Illustration