SPARKs Feedback
Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2017 4:27 pm
Joinrbs and Xwynns basically don't use SPARKs, and so I rarely see much discussion on them. I've used them in my campaigns, I even built a second one in a couple of them! I play with the DLC, so I always get the "free" one from the Shen Tower mission.
Firstly, cost wise they're probably not too expensive, but, they generally unlock at a point in the campaign where it's very hard to justify spending money on a SPARK. Given their cost, the time it takes to build them, and their infiltration penalty, it seems fair that a SPARK should actually be stronger than a regular soldier. There is a natural limit to how many you can feasibly build, so I don't think it's too dangerous if they ended up a little OP.
There are two things that SPARKs are very good at:
1) Attracting enemy fire away from the rest of your team. Their large HP pools help here, but the most important thing is that they can be deployed on a mission while injured, AND they can use Repair on themselves while stealthed. That means injuries don't really mean anything to them, you just deploy anyway and heal yourself on turn 1.
Suggestion: Just remove the injury mechanic from SPARKs all together. Right now it feels like it just makes Repair a mandatory pick. I know the more obvious option is to nerf repair, but I really like this aspect of SPARKs, it sets them apart from other soldiers.
2) Burst. On most turns a SPARK is rather mediocre for damage output, with low aim and average mobility. But when things are bad, the SPARK hits the Overdrive button and can take 3 yellow actions in a single turn. For example, Shredder, Bombard, and Standard Shot. They are one of the most bursty classes, along with Shinobi. One or two of these are good in a squad, because combat encounters vary a lot in difficulty, it's helpful to have the oh shit button.
Perks:
Rank 1: Body Shield and Combat Awareness work directly against tanking, increasing defense means the AI is less likely to shoot the SPARK, so I always just take Adaptive Aim. Adaptive Aim is meh, since the SPARK shooting is so bad in general, but the other two are worse.
Rank 2: Rainmaker is very strong, particularly early in the campaign as it increases shredder damage to where it's outright killing many enemies, I usually take this. Bulwark is one of the only very good tanking perks, and opens up all sorts of great tactical opportunities, allowing your soldiers to take high cover in odd flanking positions. Shredder is meh, it can be difficult to actually hit your target, good luck shredding a Gatekeeper for example. I kind of wish Bulwark was a base ability on the SPARK, just because it makes him so interesting to use in the tactical layer.
Rank 3: All reasonable and fair perks. If anything I might buff strike a bit, its damage is underwhelming compared to fleche or skullmining, and doesn't scale well late game. I believe it's 9 damage end game with a tier 3 bit. An interesting buff would be to make it destroy cover, the way the Andromendon's robot punch does.
Rank 4: Repair always. This is what makes a SPARK worth using, you can eat 10 damage on a mission, and then bring them on the next one and immediately repair them. The shooty perks like Guardian are just kind of bad, because the SPARKs' aim is too low.
Rank 5: Bombard every time. This ability is amazing, it seems to have a near 100% chance to destroy cover on every tile it touches, and has squad sight range without even needing line of sight. It's an incredibly flexible power, and is the best cover destruction tool in the game. Also, you can use it on a Haven Invasion Defense mission to one shot the transmitter on the roof, just need to get a Shinobi to spot for you. The other two perks involve shooting, and are thus meh.
Rank 6: Wrecking ball is neat in theory, in practice it's very hard to use. I cannot get it to reliably destroy cover I want in any way. Maybe if I could just practice with it for 30 minutes I'd figure out how to get it to work, but as it is now I've given up on it. Damage control is an ok tanking perk. Nova is a really cool perk, that I've tried hard to make work, but have given up on. The radius is small, and aliens like to spread out, and nova is blocked by cover. It's hard to get even 2 enemies in a nova, and the damage is not impressive.
Rank 7: Hunter's protocol is a good way to lose all your ammo whenever you find a pod, without hitting anything. Ok maybe if you took cool under pressure it would work better, I've never tried, but I'm pretty skeptical of anything involving a SPARK shooting (if you've noticed). Impact fields seem very underwhelming to me, I'm honestly not sure if it applies before or after armor. I generally take Sacrifice, and have gotten use out of it, but I'm really unclear on the mechanics. How does it interact with AOEs? Melee attacks? When taking shots, does it use the target's defense, or the SPARK's defense?.
SPARKs also have a remote hack, which is handy when no specialist is around, for getting hack rewards.
Overall, the changes I'd make to SPARKs:
1) Add some +Aim to their shooting perks, or provide aim for them in some way. A shooty SPARK might be fun, but it's not really feasible to build one with no way to stack aim on them. Another issue with SPARKs is the lack of a weapon at coil tech, which means they are especially bad at shooting for like 1/3rd of the game.
2) Fix odd quirks/bugs. Sacrifice targeting is odd, game pretends you can place it anywhere on the level, but then the SPARK will only run so far to do it. Enemies take cover on your SPARK when using bulwark. Sometimes when using overdrive, you can take 2 out of 3 moves and your turns ends.
3) Remove/replace the useless tanking perks (Body Shield, Combat Awareness).
4) Make them available earlier in the campaign. Don't have to make them cheaper, if they're significantly buffed.
Firstly, cost wise they're probably not too expensive, but, they generally unlock at a point in the campaign where it's very hard to justify spending money on a SPARK. Given their cost, the time it takes to build them, and their infiltration penalty, it seems fair that a SPARK should actually be stronger than a regular soldier. There is a natural limit to how many you can feasibly build, so I don't think it's too dangerous if they ended up a little OP.
There are two things that SPARKs are very good at:
1) Attracting enemy fire away from the rest of your team. Their large HP pools help here, but the most important thing is that they can be deployed on a mission while injured, AND they can use Repair on themselves while stealthed. That means injuries don't really mean anything to them, you just deploy anyway and heal yourself on turn 1.
Suggestion: Just remove the injury mechanic from SPARKs all together. Right now it feels like it just makes Repair a mandatory pick. I know the more obvious option is to nerf repair, but I really like this aspect of SPARKs, it sets them apart from other soldiers.
2) Burst. On most turns a SPARK is rather mediocre for damage output, with low aim and average mobility. But when things are bad, the SPARK hits the Overdrive button and can take 3 yellow actions in a single turn. For example, Shredder, Bombard, and Standard Shot. They are one of the most bursty classes, along with Shinobi. One or two of these are good in a squad, because combat encounters vary a lot in difficulty, it's helpful to have the oh shit button.
Perks:
Rank 1: Body Shield and Combat Awareness work directly against tanking, increasing defense means the AI is less likely to shoot the SPARK, so I always just take Adaptive Aim. Adaptive Aim is meh, since the SPARK shooting is so bad in general, but the other two are worse.
Rank 2: Rainmaker is very strong, particularly early in the campaign as it increases shredder damage to where it's outright killing many enemies, I usually take this. Bulwark is one of the only very good tanking perks, and opens up all sorts of great tactical opportunities, allowing your soldiers to take high cover in odd flanking positions. Shredder is meh, it can be difficult to actually hit your target, good luck shredding a Gatekeeper for example. I kind of wish Bulwark was a base ability on the SPARK, just because it makes him so interesting to use in the tactical layer.
Rank 3: All reasonable and fair perks. If anything I might buff strike a bit, its damage is underwhelming compared to fleche or skullmining, and doesn't scale well late game. I believe it's 9 damage end game with a tier 3 bit. An interesting buff would be to make it destroy cover, the way the Andromendon's robot punch does.
Rank 4: Repair always. This is what makes a SPARK worth using, you can eat 10 damage on a mission, and then bring them on the next one and immediately repair them. The shooty perks like Guardian are just kind of bad, because the SPARKs' aim is too low.
Rank 5: Bombard every time. This ability is amazing, it seems to have a near 100% chance to destroy cover on every tile it touches, and has squad sight range without even needing line of sight. It's an incredibly flexible power, and is the best cover destruction tool in the game. Also, you can use it on a Haven Invasion Defense mission to one shot the transmitter on the roof, just need to get a Shinobi to spot for you. The other two perks involve shooting, and are thus meh.
Rank 6: Wrecking ball is neat in theory, in practice it's very hard to use. I cannot get it to reliably destroy cover I want in any way. Maybe if I could just practice with it for 30 minutes I'd figure out how to get it to work, but as it is now I've given up on it. Damage control is an ok tanking perk. Nova is a really cool perk, that I've tried hard to make work, but have given up on. The radius is small, and aliens like to spread out, and nova is blocked by cover. It's hard to get even 2 enemies in a nova, and the damage is not impressive.
Rank 7: Hunter's protocol is a good way to lose all your ammo whenever you find a pod, without hitting anything. Ok maybe if you took cool under pressure it would work better, I've never tried, but I'm pretty skeptical of anything involving a SPARK shooting (if you've noticed). Impact fields seem very underwhelming to me, I'm honestly not sure if it applies before or after armor. I generally take Sacrifice, and have gotten use out of it, but I'm really unclear on the mechanics. How does it interact with AOEs? Melee attacks? When taking shots, does it use the target's defense, or the SPARK's defense?.
SPARKs also have a remote hack, which is handy when no specialist is around, for getting hack rewards.
Overall, the changes I'd make to SPARKs:
1) Add some +Aim to their shooting perks, or provide aim for them in some way. A shooty SPARK might be fun, but it's not really feasible to build one with no way to stack aim on them. Another issue with SPARKs is the lack of a weapon at coil tech, which means they are especially bad at shooting for like 1/3rd of the game.
2) Fix odd quirks/bugs. Sacrifice targeting is odd, game pretends you can place it anywhere on the level, but then the SPARK will only run so far to do it. Enemies take cover on your SPARK when using bulwark. Sometimes when using overdrive, you can take 2 out of 3 moves and your turns ends.
3) Remove/replace the useless tanking perks (Body Shield, Combat Awareness).
4) Make them available earlier in the campaign. Don't have to make them cheaper, if they're significantly buffed.