Apexes (Aura)

Ships

Apexes (Aura)

Apex (Aura) Details, Overall Apex (Aura) Reviews in general

Apexes are late game content. Each ship has 2 apexes. You can only view and unlock the apexes for a particular ship when that ship is fully ult-ed. Apexes change the look of the ship, sometimes in a revolutionary way. However, each apex also comes with either a re-adjustment or an enhancement to the ship. You can buy both apexes, but only one of them is usable at any point in time. You may also switch back to the base form of the ship at any time.

Apexes can be seen as cosmetic changes, like skins in other free-to-play games. In fact, as confirmed by the devs, the price of apexes are hand set based on the appearance of the apex instead of the apex's re-adjustment / enhancement. Some apexes have useful changes, others not so much. Price is irrelevant to how useful an apex might feel. There are some apexes that are necessary to secure BoBs or sBoBs due to the fact some apex enhancements improve the speedrunning capabilities of the ship.

You may refer to this website to search up the apexes of every ship in the game: https://elegater.github.io/

The greek alphabet of the apexes only determines the price of the apex. It does not determine the re-adjustment / enhancement of the apex.

An easy way to remember the prices of the apexes in ascending order (since the next apex is simply an increase of ¢5.000) based on the name is through the following:

ABCDE LoST Phoenix Order

The C is replaced by G for Gamma, but "Camma" sounds quite close, so it sort of works.

This section is a generic section describing how the apex might help and/or hinder you. Main weapon upgrades or apexes for exclusive Auras / Zens available to only one ship will not be listed here, but under the Ship Details itself.

An overall rating from C - X is also given to each apex, but this rating is a very general guide and there are times that the apex may be more/less useful on other ships, which may boost/lower its rating instead. 2 ratings are given, the first rating refers to its usefulness in daily missions where waves alternate between light and heavy and/or dense waves, the second rating refers to its usefulness in community and specialist missions where every wave is quite balanced. Take these ratings as an extremely rough gauge and refer to the Advanced Tier List for the specific apex in question to get the accurate rating.

The general increase that each apex has on all of the tier categories, namely Survivability, Speedrunning & Fun Factor are also given. These increases are given with respect to daily / specialist missions. It is not the final rating applied to all apexes that are of this boost, so how the apex works with the ship will change the boosts accordingly. The way this rating works is through a generic addition system, which is as follows:

• A "-" means there is a minor decrease the apex provides in the tier category to the sub-letter tier rating. For example,
  • A+ to A
  • A to A-
  • A- will remain as A- (special case)
• A "--" means there is a major decrease the apex provides in the tier category, likely knocking it down one letter tier rating. For example,
  • A+ to A-
  • A to B+
  • A- to B- / B / B+
• A "=" means there is no change the apex provides in the tier category, or the change is such a minor boost that there is not even an increase of the sub-letter tier rating for a ship.
• An increase of "+" means there is a minor boost the apex provides in the tier category. This means that it is likely that the apex will see an increase of the sub-letter tier rating. For example,
  • A- to A / A+
  • A to A+
  • A+ will remain as A+ (special case)
• An increase of "++" means there is a noticeable boost the apex provides in the tier category. This means that the apex will see an increase of the letter tier rating. For example,
  • B+ to A-
  • B to A-
  • S+ to X (special case)
• An increase of "+++" means there is a significant boost the apex provides in the tier category. This means that it is likely that the apex will see an increase in BOTH the letter and sub-letter tier rating. For example,
  • B- to A- / A (excludes B- to A+)
  • B to A / A+
  • B+ to A+
  • S- / S to X (special case)
• An increase of "++++" means there is a game changing boost the apex provides in the tier category. This means that it is likely that the apex will see an increase in AT LEAST 2 letter tier rating. The examples become too many to list, but here are some notable ones:
  • B- to A+ (special case)
  • Any rating to X

Take note that boosts to Beginner Friendliness or Uniqueness Factor will NOT be mentioned. The reason is apexes are NOT catered to beginners. Also, since these are generic rating boosts, uniqueness can't be applied to a collective group of apexes.

Bullet EMP Apexes

Increased Stun

• Mirage Omega

Increases the maximum stun duration from 0.6s to 1.2s. The actual stun duration is scaled by the size of the BEMP.

The extra stun time is useful against turrets that fire fast bullets such as darts or boomerangs, so that you have more time to reposition yourself at another side of the field to take out these dangerous turrets first. The increased stun duration also saves you a BEMP on a laser infested wave to reset laser turrets as the mutliple BEMPs used on such a wave will stack up enough stun time to take out these lasers quickly enough before Aura runs low. In between wave transitions, if the field is infested with bullets, using BEMP to clear the field, and then quickly swiping down to charge an offensive long charging Zen could be possible if the turrets firing fast bullets are not too downfield. The slower the bullets, the more this apex helps.

Extended Range (BEMP)

• Shinova Alpha
• Tempest Beta
• Mirage Delta

Increases the maximum radius of BEMP from 450 to 500. The energy requirement to reach the new maximum radius is the same, which translates to a quicker increase in BEMP radius.

This apex is quite useful for the quicker increase in radius. This means that you can get a roughly usable BEMP with less particle uptake. It can be a big deal for offensive ships that rely on BEMP for positioning purposes. The other advantage of this apex is needing less particles to have a big size BEMP means it's faster to get a big enough BEMP for it to cover dangerous turrets such as spinners or MIRV Bloomers, which can make all the difference in survivability. However, remember that with this apex, you should generally use BEMP more often as the maximum of this extended range BEMP is quite useless honestly.

Bullet Detonator (BEMP)

• Disaris Omega

Makes every bullet cleared by BEMP release a small blast explosion that deals 2 damage each, with a tiny radius, dealing damage to any invaders that are caught in the blast explosion.

Using this apex is a satisfaction like no other in the hells of Shuriken/MIRV missions. Particularly, using this apex against any kind of pellet spinners simply obliterates the invaders around it. Against shuriken spinners would work rather well too. Using against Dart spinners also have this effect, but to a much lesser extent. Pellet MIRV Bloomers? Yet another heaven. Simply get close enough to them to trigger as many MIRV explosions as possible and fire BEMP.

This apex is extremely powerful against Condors and Rocs that have high tier spinners or MIRV Bloomers, even going as far as to completely obliterating them with only one full BEMP with 2 T4 pellet spinners. Combined with turret riding / inside graze, the potential of this apex against pellet spinners is beyond comprehension.

The only problem with this apex comes outside of Shuriken/MIRV missions. Because BEMP is a one-time use, it's most optimal usage is when there are lots and lots of bullets stacked on screen. It is generally difficult to wait for such a scenario to occur outside of Shuriken/MIRV missions, since you would more than likely be cornered by then, reducing the effective radius of BEMP Bullet Detonator. Especially in missions with predominantly fast moving bullets, it is hard to deal effective damage with this apex. Firing BEMP at the right time, such that it is the most effective is also very difficult. This is unlike PD Bullet Detonator where you can determine with good accuracy where are the bullets going to detonate, making it easy to deal effective damage. This is analogous to firing an extremely inaccurate chaingun into the open field.

Destructive Wave

• Shinova Delta
• Phoenix Delta
• Juggernaut Lambda
• Lyova Tau

Deals a maximum AoE damage of 10 to all invaders that are within range of the BEMP when fired. The damage scales with radius, just like SEMP.

This apex is extremely useful under all circumstances. BEMP now becomes an extremely viable speedrunning tool that can massively improve the speed of the ship. A mid size BEMP wipes out all Sparrows, similar to an SEMP. Using BEMP offensively at the start of the wave not only eliminates Sparrows, but also clears out bullets. It's a valuable double edged sword. This also means getting the particles from Sparrows quickly, so you can decide whether to launch even more offensive BEMPs, or use it defensively when faced with the remaining larger invaders.

Like SEMP, if you didn't manage to catch all the Sparrows, no worry. A second round of BEMP can often be fired off later after regaining some Aura from destroyed Sparrows or grazing to eliminate the remaining Sparrows. You can see destructive wave BEMP as a more advanced use of SEMP in some sense; fire pre-emptively to destroy some invaders, then destroy some invaders, fire it off again. Rinse and repeat. You'll just have to deal with bullets inbetween BEMPs since the stun duration of BEMP is short.

This also means like SEMP, destructive wave BEMP allows more leniency in target switching. In fact, you can even heavily damage Raven(s) and swap to the next target. Using the collected particles and a bit of grazing, fire off yet another BEMP to finish off the heavily damaged Raven(s). The denser the wave, the easier is it to use BEMP to finish off Ravens, switching between Ravens even more quickly (just remember to kill a few of them, otherwise you won't have particles to fire off BEMPs).

There are times when you are hanging around with a near full size BEMP and just don't know what to do with it, since the remaining turrets on field producing bullets are so easy to dodge. The AoE damage from this apex also potentially means you can deal massive damage to invader crowds. This apex turns many ships into pretty insane potential speedrunners, even for those ships that were originally nowhere near speedrunning standards. This apex turns BEMP into such a versatile tool - one that does everything imaginable - clearing bullets, resetting turrets (sometimes a full SEMP duration is not necessary, particularly for spinners and lasers), and dealing damage. It's triple treat!

Stun EMP Apexes

Extended Range (SEMP)

• Mist Star Gamma
• Torrent Alpha

Increases the maximum radius of SEMP from 450 to 500.

This apex encourages you to use SEMP in smaller bursts more often. SEMP partially reverts to its level 1 status where you use SEMP purely as a reset tool. This is very useful against dangerous spinners, low Mk MIRV Bloomers that take a long time to fire, or even DD weapons. However, be very careful as the SEMP duration does not change, which means for the same radius of SEMP, the turret(s) that were stunned stay stunned for a shorter time. Thus, it is a bad idea to stand near tracking dart turrets after launching an SEMP.

Strong Stun

• Mist Star Lambda

Increase the maximum stun time from 4s to 5s

This apex can make a difference in heavier waves as these waves do not give you a lot of particles to work with. After stunning all the invaders, you have more time to take out Ravens and Herons so that you can re-stun the rest of the invaders on field. In other types of waves, it's not as useful since there would be a good supply of particles.

High Damage (SEMP)

• NC-150 Gamma
• Cinnri Tau
• Photurius Tau
• Nimbus Sigma
• Zimitr Delta

Increases maximum AoE damage dealt by SEMP from 10 to 15.

This apex helps when you are faced with massive invader crowds, as the continuous usage of SEMP and thus continuous stunning of invaders after killing just a few more Ravens or Sparrows helps a lot in the DPS and thus killing off the remaining invader crowds much faster. It is also extremely useful in early waves where a significantly smaller SEMP is able to kill Sparrows. For many SEMP ships with this apex, they also rely on SEMP damage to quickly destroy the invaders, in which case, SEMP doubles up as a very effective huge AoE damage tool, rather than simply being a tool to stun invaders. It becomes incredibly effective in dense waves, where the buff provided by this apex can be easily felt.

Barrier Apexes

Reinforced Lining

• Razor VI Beta
• Predator Alpha

Increases the strength of the Inner Lining, making it the same strength as the outer barrier.

This apex improves the survivability of the ships that have it. But in addition to that, it allows for some chaining of offensive Zens, such as ML or MB. In fact, you may even be able to charge 2 of such Zens consecutively before the both the inner and outer barriers fade.

Reflector (Barrier)

• Tillat'Or Gamma
• Gorthaur Beta
• Heechi Delta
• Qhelqod Gamma
• Stinger Epsilon

Causes any lasers that hit the outer edge of the outer barrier to reflect back to a random target, with a DPS of 10, similar to PS's Laser Reflection ult. Bear in mind that even though lasers are reflected, the barriers will still take damage from the lasers per normal, and the inner lining will also still fade as per normal if the outer barrier dies first. Lasers that hit the inner edge of the outer barrier, or the outer/inner edge if the inner barrier will NOT be reflected back to invaders as damage.

This apex is a big game changer for many ships that are unable to handle daily mission types with lasers very well, or just have a lack of defence against lasers which puts them slightly further down in the Basic Tier List. Obviously, any ship with this apex is now extremely capable of handling even the hardest laser missions. Because even the smallest barriers can reflect lasers, you can deploy a thick stack of small barriers, all around yourself in order to defend yourself against lasers. Each burst of lasers firing only have the capability to destroy one barrier since barriers have a Phase Out time. This makes for near infinite defence against lasers. Just beware that your thick stack of barriers will fade away after some time even though they are not taking damage, so deploy each barrier slowly after each other where possible (unless you are overflowing on particles).

Barrier Reflector apexes are also incredibly effective against speed lasers, due to how quickly they reload, making PS an impractical tool to deal against them. Being able to move about freely within your downfield barriers also make speed lasers extremely trivial.

The only issue now is bullets, which can quickly destroy your barriers since you no longer have the advantage of the ult, the inner lining which is supposed to provide more defence. However, the pure offensive power of laser reflection from these barriers decimates invaders so fast, you hardly need to contend with many bullets at all. Just be careful to conserve one deployable barrier at hand as barrier Phase Out is not entirely reliable in keeping lasers out. You can then deploy the barrier you at hand to defend yourself against any possible laser leak. Also, if you are out of barriers but still have the deployable barrier at hand, you can deploy the barrier at the last minute just before the lasers fire yet another round, since the smallest barriers can last one full burst of lasers.

Unlike PS, the area of laser catch is much wider with barrier. This usually makes for much larger reflection damage compared to PS since some T1 low Mk lasers that have poor tracking ability may not be able to target your core in time.

Because of the presence of DDLs in daily missions, you need to be careful to place barriers such that DDLs will not hit them, or reserve barriers at hand until one round of DDL has fired. Be sure to have a barrier up at the start of each wave as DDLs take very long to fire and one round of lasers is definite to go off first.

Laser Storm Apexes

Tac Moons

• Havoc Gamma
• Ogon Beta

Modifies LS such that now there are only 2 laser moons shooting 2 highly concentrated lasers on turrets, popping turrets significantly faster. As per usual LS ult, it will switch targets once the turret is destroyed. The total damage remains unchanged, so the DPS of each laser moon is increased.

This apex helps ships that have difficulties in main weapon usage to direct their shots onto turrets. The Tac Moons then help cover turret popping such that you can focus on trying to pop off turrets that are closer to you. Unfortunately, since you can't control which turrets the Tac Moons are aiming at, you just have to hope and pray. At least, however, turrets are popped off faster which means better survivability for ships with this apex. Otherwise, this apex isn't terribly useful.

Shield Breaker (LS)

• Elyon Lambda
• Xaniea Tau
• Reaper Tau

Laser Storm now deals 2.5 times the normal damage to invader shields, just like SB main weapons.

This apex makes LS ships faster in SB missions. While it's easy to see the effects of this apex, it's difficult to properly feel the effects of this apex. By this statement, you can visually see invader shields go down faster, but it's difficult to feel that you are going faster because there are too many things happening on screen, that you are not really keeping track of how fast invaders are going down. You just "know" that invaders are going down faster, but its hard to really tell how much faster. The bigger the invader, the easier it is to feel the effects of the apex. On smaller invaders such as Ravens, it's just too hard to tell you are actually killing invaders faster.

Since invader shields go down faster, it is also faster for your main weapon (coupled together with LS) to pop off turrets. However, this still relies a lot on your turret aiming skills. Since SB LS no longer deals bonus damage when the shield is down, it now performs the same as normal LS.

High Power

• Fujin Sigma
• Buhloo Epsilon
• Elyon Beta
• Lokie Delta

Reduces the maximum duration of LS to exactly half of it's original duration (2.25s). All other sizes of LS also have their duration halved accordingly. However, the total damage dealt remains the same.

This apex is extremely useful for all LS ships, since one of the biggest problems with LS is it lasts so long, until by the time it ends, you realize your Aura is full again and would thus have wasted particles. This apex fixes that problem. It particularly benefits speedrunning ships since you always need a higher DPS in speedrunning. The speed of many speedrunning LS ships is fast enough that you kill all the small invaders so quickly in that LS has not even finished its job, so you waste TONS of particles.

Another benefit to this apex that stems from the increased DPS of LS is that turrets get popped off faster. Stripping turrets quickly is a lot of fun, and seeing naked invaders without turrets become more commonplace.

Despite the fast enough speed to kill smaller invaders, they are still unable to par with other speedrunning ships. This apex allows speedrunning to still have a full Aura spam at all times even with the shorter LS time, which still wastes a bit of particles but at least, it's not as bad as normal LS. You can thus say that, offensive power wise, this apex brings LS closer in par with MS, but still, not quite.

Missile Swarm Apexes

The left image (as a set of 4) shows the individual missiles, while the right image (as a set of 4) shows the targeting reticule on invaders. The top left shows normal MS, the top right shows MS High Explosive, the bottom left shows MS Ion Warheads, and the bottom right shows MS Armor Piercing. (As you could see, while the targeting reticule of MS Armor Piercing has no difference from normal MS, the missile head of MS Armor Piercing is slightly smaller than normal MS.)

High Explosive

• Geist Sigma
• Atlas Delta
• Corsair Tau
• Uhb Delta

Makes each missile release a small blast explosion that deals some additional damage to invaders. More specifically, while a missile from a normal MS deals 3 damage, this apex means each missile does 3 damage to targeted invader, with an additional 1 damage to all invaders (excluding the originally targeted invader) within a radius of 50.

It is very difficult to actually judge how much of an impact this apex makes. You just have to trust that this apex allows Raven and Sparrow crowds to be cleared out a bit faster. The blast radius of the missiles is very small, making it very difficult to actually reach neighboring invaders.

Armor Piercing (MS)

• Trireme Gamma
• Von Braun Delta
• Prime X Epsilon
• Kibarrax Lambda

Makes each missile of MS of AP type, dealing the full 3 damage (for a total of 138 damage since there are 46 missiles, assuming all hit) to armor invaders, increasing the offensive power of MS significantly (in fact 43%, since it is increased from 70% damage to 100% damage).

You no longer have to go right up to the cockpit of armor invaders and do a missile barrel on them, since that is extremely difficult due to the point blank range. This apex is extremely powerful and is very viable for speedrunning, making AP ships with this apex significantly faster and able to compete against base form speedrunning ships.

Ion Warheads (MS)

• Geist Phi
• Ex04239 Sigma

Makes each missile have a 0.6s of stun on turrets it hits. The stun duration does not stack with multiple missiles hitting the same invader. Think of this apex like a mini IC Overcharge, where there is a small stun radius, about the radius of High Explosive MS. The energy usage is still the same, Aura radius increase per particle wise.

This apex is extremely powerful. Even with such a short stun duration, the equivalent of this apex is that of BEMP ult, a reset tool. Resetting turrets is extremely useful, especially when it comes to spinners and sometimes even lasers. It also delays MIRV Bloomers from pumping in more MIRVs onto the field, allowing for significantly better survivability and maneuverability. What makes it very powerful is the fact that even the smallest MS can cause a reset, and given the fire and forget nature of MS, you can head straight up to an invader with dangerous turrets, fire MS, and head back down and it would be of nearly no threat anymore for some time due to the turrets that got a reset. This process can be repeated ad infinitum, since you can simply graze some bullets to get a large enough MS Aura size to fire off yet another MS. Compare that to BEMP where it is only able to reset turrets that are in range of its Aura, furthermore, both have the same max radius.

The reasons why MS Ion Warheads is so powerful doesn't stop there. BEMP is a one time launch, which means it strictly lasts for 0.6s. However, since not all missiles impact a turret at the same time, this means that the 0.6s of stun doesn't start until the last missile hits the turret. This means that the stun time of a turret is much longer and actually tangible enough for a mini SEMP launched against it.

Be careful though, as some turrets will come out of their stun much earlier than others (due to the RNG nature of MS which causes some turrets to not be hit when the last few missiles hit), which can spell trouble for turrets that fire immediately after the invader carrying them is active on field. Some turrets may not even be hit at all if you do not fire MS at the right position, which will continue to fire. This can be difficult to detect with all the screenshake, explosions and missile trails going on so be careful to respond to red stuff you see on screen which are bullets. Not to mention, you have to be careful to look out for white laser lines that did not disappear for a moment. Try to be as close to the middle of the field as you can to avoid this. The main problem would usually be dart tracking turrets, although pellet launchers and spreads may pose a problem as well.

The only potential problem with this apex is when you have a frontline Vulture and both the Vulture and back row invaders have lasers on them, which throw the lasers off sync.

A less known fact is that the minimum radius required to be able to fire off MS Ion Warheads is bigger than normal MS. The comparison is shown below, with Normal MS on the left and MS Ion Warheads on the right:

Point Defence Apexes

Sentinel

• Yoth-Hola Epsilon
• Vuxine Gamma
• Proteus Beta

Fires one PD laser roughly once every 0.5s that consumes no Aura energy. This PD laser works like regular PD and eliminates only one bullet (or MIRV). However, this Sentinel PD laser only activates when bullets are within the current radius of the PD Aura. It will not target bullets further than that.

This apex is unfortunately not very useful due to the pure density of bullets in this game (well, you are playing a bullet hell game, what do you expect?), and bullets are often extremely bunched up together, and at times other bullets overtake bullets that were originally closer to you. The effect of this apex is unfortunately very minimal in later waves such as Act 4 and above. It helps when you are trying to charge ML or MB, but only against a bullet sparse field with only either pellets or shurikens, and definitely not darts. But such a situation only occurs if you allow cooldown time at the end of a wave. Overall, this apex does not really help in survivability, but does help in setting up ML or MB, although in only very specific circumstances. In earlier Acts, it helps more, but the bullet density is small enough in that it's not difficult to simply position yourself correctly. Anyway, you are better off learning positioning yourself properly.

Trivia: In the predecessor game Phoenix HD, there is a single-use boost called the Point Defence Drone, which operates identical to this Sentinel Apex, with the Point Defence Drone having roughly the same fire rate of this Sentinel Apex to eliminate bullets.

Bullet Detonator (PD)

• Tar'Cah Lambda
• Wrackr Epsilon
• Arietis Lambda
• Zephyr Epsilon
• Widget Tau
• Luna Tau

Makes every bullet cleared by PD release a small blast explosion that deals 2 damage each, with a tiny radius, dealing damage to any invaders that are caught in the blast explosion.

This apex completely changes the way you use PD since you are now using it for offence. However, this apex is only for very pro players since this eliminates one source of your defence, and for some of these ships with this apex, this means no other defensive options remaining. If you are not using PD offensively enough, you would have wasted your money buying such an apex.

Bullet Detonator is effective in 2 cases: against large crowds of small invaders in front of other invaders with higher tier turrets, or against large invaders in front with many backline smaller invaders behind. In the former case, there is a lot of RNG involved. Sometimes invaders line up properly and they all vaporize, at other times they dodge the bullet explosions and you are still left with quite a number of invaders to deal with. In the latter case, it is consistent, and can even be used against that large invader's own bullets fired. Timing of when to fire PD is very important for this apex since the wrong timing means the apex becomes useless and you waste your PD for no reason.

There are also some extremely crazy things you can try with PD, such as turret riding. This not only means riding spinners and MIRV Bloomers, but you can also ride pellet spreads, dart tracking turrets and more! You want to be somewhere on top of the turret itself, but towards the edge of the turret, visually, such that the turret hitbox will not kill you, but at the same time, you want to be JUST behind the spawn point of the pellets, darts or MIRVs. Spamming PD when this happens results in not only you grazing off these bullets, but also have the capability to deal damage due to how quickly the bullets are eliminated while they are just emitted and still on top of the invaders, resulting in pretty insanely fast kills.

Compared to BEMP Bullet Detonator, the nature of PD being a more precision based Aura makes it more effective in most missions that feature a mix of faster and slower bullets. However, in the hells of Shuriken/MIRV missions, the BEMP Bullet Detonator absolutely triumphs over PD Bullet Detonator.

The blast radius is shown in the image below:

EMP Laser

• Tar'Cah Delta
• Orion Delta
• AB8/Klyn Delta
• Pandora Tau

Completely changes the way PD works. It fires only one PD laser (at 0.1s intervals, just like regular PD, except regular PD fires 10 lasers at 0.1s intervals), but the bullet targeted by the PD laser releases a small BEMP that clears out other bullets around it in a small radius, approximately 50 radius. Each PD laser also takes up twice the Aura energy compared to normal PD, although depletion is generally much slower due to the less lasers being fired at once.

This apex is the biggest game changer for Shuriken/MIRV missions. PD used to be rather lackluster in eliminating bullets due to the number of bullets which are able to be cleared, since PD depletes purely based on the number of bullets on screen. But now, with this apex, the number of bullets which are able to be cleared is unlimited! This brings it on par with BEMP since it has also unlimited bullet clearing capability. But because PD is not a one-time use, but depletes slowly, this PD EMP Laser apex just supercedes BEMP since you often do not need the full BEMP radius to continue navigating around the field or surviving.

The technique to use the PD EMP Laser apex is to rhythmically tap to use it, and not hold it down or spam tap it. This is because you need to allow a small time frame for the previous PD laser to fully exert its impact as the BEMP takes a very short while to fully take effect. With a bit of experience in timing the intervals between taps, this apex is so useful, you can practically clear ANY Shuriken/MIRV mission in your FIRST ATTEMPT, no matter the difficulty, even with the hardest Rocs. You didn't read that wrongly - I kid you not.

Outside of Shuriken/MIRV mission usage, this apex is only useful based on situation. This apex suffers from waves that feature different types of turrets that fire bullets of different speeds since the small BEMP released is unable to catch the faster darts coming at you on time which may result in your death. You will need to spam PD when faced with such circumstances, and do not rely on this apex to save you from darts in a mess of other slower moving bullets such as pellets or shurikens. In particular, this apex severely suffers with the presence of boomerangs, since the BEMP is usually unable to clear out boomerangs due to their extreme speed. Be prepared to dodge boomerangs. With the increased energy usage from spamming it, this PD EMP Laser apex will not last you long in such waves. The efficiency of bullet clearing in such waves is usually lower than normal PD. The reduced efficiency of this apex, which sometimes feel like you are back to using a level 1 PD (which really sucks), is what might make this apex difficult to recommend outside of Shuriken/MIRV missions. However, it will work well on very tough Dart/MIRV missions that feature lots of MIRV Bloomers or Spreads in a single wave, or on a Condor/Roc.

The reason why it works so well in Shuriken/MIRV missions is because all the bullets are slow, and roughly the same speed, which stacks so many bullets together in a very tight space, making bullet clearing with this apex so efficient.

Chrono Field Apexes

Deep Field

• Yigothu Sigma
• Njörun Lambda
• Trinity Phi

Increases the maximum radius of CF by about 20% to a radius of 200. It also slows down all turrets which are inside the CF to 30% of their original firing speed, which means they fire bullets slower and have a longer turret cycle of 3.33 times the original cycle length (it takes longer for the next burst to fire, if the turret is in its cooldown state and not firing any bullets).

This apex encourages a very pre-emptive usage of CF, rather than simply using it for last minute defence. It also rewards an aggressive playstyle, going upfield to deploy it and then staying upfield yourself to wreck havoc among the invaders. It benefits ships that require manual aiming of the main weapon a bit due to the increased safety range. However, the slowing of turrets can work to both your advantage and disadvantage. It works very well against spinners and bloomers, particularly when they are in their cooldown state. However, putting it on laser turrets is disaster as this will throw the lasers affected by CF off sync to those that are unaffected (unless you are able to cover all laser turrets, which is unlikely due to the small CF radius, even with the radius increase).

The denser the waves are, the more significant the slowing effect. You can deploy Deep Field and start popping turrets that are most dangerous first. Moving up to pop dangerous turrets refills your Aura quickly, usually allowing for a second CF after the first one expires to allow for enough time to pop all the dangerous turrets. Since you would be going upfield to deploy the Deep Field, you should deploy it quickly since you might eat particles while being upfield.

The deep purple color of the Deep Field mean that it can be hard to see where you are inside the CF, especially when there are many smaller invaders inside the CF as well.

Vorpal Lance Apexes

High Capacity (VL)

• Saber Beta
• Exarch Epsilon
• Antioch Beta
• Wraith Gamma
• Icarus Delta

Increases the maximum number of counters for VLs from 4 to 5.

In community missions, this apex only benefits ships that kill so fast, there's sometimes no reason to use more VLs and thus you run the absolute risk of overflowing particles. For other VL ships, even those in the Offensive class, the rather fast rate of killing actually comes from VL itself, and not using it will instead more likely result in your death. For a speedrunning context, the cases are very rare that you will run into a situation of particle overflow, as a good speedrunner will never save up their VLs.

There are cases where it is a good idea to stockpile 5 VLs to push through an extremely difficult wave containing many large invaders with dangerous turrets, unleashing all 5 VLs to get rid of the threats. However, these situations are rare, making this apex too situational. Thus, for ships that are unable to kill at such quick speeds, this apex is useless. If you need this apex because you are overflowing on particles for offensive ships, please go improve your skills on how to use VL by reading the Vorpal Lance section.

Trident

• Naya Tau
• Warden Phi

Splits a single VL projectile into 3, equally dividing the damage between them (so each VL projectile now deals 13.2 damage), and 2 of the VL projectiles have a slight angle to the left and right of the vertical. The firing pattern of VL Trident is shown below:

This apex loves to strip invaders of their turrets, which improves survivability. You don't have to particularly aim, just sweep from left to right and this would naturally happen. Particularly, it likes to strip Ravens and Herons of their turrets. However, because of how weak each VL projectile is, it is difficult to eliminate even Ravens, since being able to land 2 of the split up VL only deals 26.4 which is insufficient to kill any affinity of Raven. However, it is likely to be able to strip a Raven of both its turrets. This means that the Raven(s) can be left alone to self-destruct, but this also means that it is easy to waste some of your main weapon's damage on these heavily damaged Ravens.

This apex is meant for VL to be used in at least bursts of 2 or 3. Throwing a single Trident VL rarely helps, as it is difficult to eliminate Ravens which is one of the strongest points of VL. In fact, usually 3 VLs are required as 2 VLs are unlikely to destroy Ravens completely. Throwing 2 VLs might be useful in Sparrow dense waves, especially for ships that struggle to take down Sparrows quickly. Splitting the lance into 3 means each VL covers more area, thus dealing more effective damage, especially against Sparrows and Ravens which like to dodge your normal VLs. The catch rate of Trident VL is impressive, but Trident VLs need to be used in packs of at least 2 - 3 as mentioned. This makes Trident VL apexes much more fun to play with as you can deal with less RNG.

However, you have to take the sacrifice of using VL as a less reliable last minute escape out of jail card, as the Vorpal Wake is even more difficult with Trident VL, due to how each lance seems to be slightly thinner. Therefore, riding with the VL is not always guaranteed to get you out of being trapped in bullets.

Twin Lance

• Vani-Vith Epsilon
• Gladius Epsilon
• Antioch Delta
• Neni Epsilon
• Jeria Epsilon

Increases the width of VL (so it's not really 2 VLs) so that it can potentially hit more invaders with a single VL.

This apex is useful against dense waves. It allows ships with this apex to be much quicker due to the better invader clearing capabilities. This iis especially against very dense waves where each VL can make a huge difference in catching a couple more invaders. Also, since each VL is wider, you can even conserve 1 VL since 3 wider VLs is enough to cover the whole field instead of 4 normal VLs, which means even better speed from being able to use 1 VL the next wave where you may not be able to with normal VL. Another advantage is due to the wider VL, you also get better bullet clearing capabilities, which improves survivability as well.

A possible disadvantage, however, is that due to the wider lance, it is slightly more difficult to pop off turrets since you risk hitting the invader's hull first instead of a turret, which then registers as damage to the invader and not the turret you are aiming for.

Phalanx Apexes

Crisis EMP

• Esperon Epsilon

Clears bullets between the deployed Phalanx and your ship's core

This apex is especially useful against the hells of Shuriken/MIRV missions. Having bullets everywhere means that it is easy to get cornered, and bring along many pellets with you near your ship's core in confusing different directions. Clearing the bullets between your core and Phalanx allows you to confidently shovel without dying. In other missions, it's rare you would get cornered with so many slow bullets around your ship's core, so there is very little use for this apex.

Double Phalanx

• 502-Q8 Beta
• Hunter Gamma
• Boxer Alpha
• Lorilou Gamma

Adds a second, smaller Phalanx at the front of the original Phalanx which has 1/3 the health of the original Phalanx, or 50% strength. This means the smaller Phalanx would break after 12 bullets. They both have separate health. The breaking of the smaller Phalanx works the same way as the original larger Phalanx, there is a Phase Out time where it can potentially clear unlimited bullets in that time. Unlike Barrier, the smaller additional Phalanx will still continue to last in the rare case the larger original Phalanx breaks first.

This apex is very useful for all ships with this apex as the amount of bullets you can shove away with both Phalanxes is a lot greater due to double Phase Out time. You may also be able to do a double shovel, the first one being less since the smaller Phalanx is much weaker. It is significantly useful the more bullets on screen there are, making it slightly less effective in community missions which feature generic type of missions with a bullet density not as much as in daily missions.

The picture below compares the normal Phalanx (top) with the double Phalanx (bottom).

Reflector (Phalanx)

• Valkyrie Gamma
• Marauder Beta

Causes any lasers that hit the outer (or upper) edge of the Phalanx to reflect back to a random target, with a DPS of 10, similar to PS's Laser Reflection ult. The Phalanx is gold in color and fades to red as it takes damage. Bear in mind even though lasers are reflected, the Phalanx still takes damage from the lasers per usual.

Unlike it's barrier counterpart, this apex is not as useful. This is because you can only have one Phalanx active at any given time, as a newly deployed Phalanx will entirely replace the old one. Therefore, because lasers melt Phalanxes relatively fast, and the Phase Out time of Phalanx just isn't enough for you to wait for a Phalanx to break before deploying a new one. This means that you have no choice but to waste a bit of the current Phalanx's strength to sustain the laser reflection. The inability to stack several Phalanxes together limits the potential of this apex to be an excellent one.

Phalanx Reflector apexes are also incredibly effective against speed lasers just like Barrier Reflector, due to how quickly they reload, making PS an impractical tool to deal against them. The amount of damage done to Phalanxes by speed lasers is small, making Phalanx Reflector last pretty long.

While Barrier Reflector can be used with great success in laser missions, Phalanx Reflector is a lot more difficult to use to get success out of it. In fact, the health of Phalanx is so weak, that you require 3 Phalanxes to reflect off a full burst of lasers firing at you. It is possible to only use 2, but you have to be very experienced to pull it off without dying. Thus, this apex is only useful in small to medium laser density waves, which means it may even struggle to keep up on certain generic mission type waves.

Against a lot of speed lasers, Phalanx Reflector excels as it will almost certainly last against one full burst of speed lasers firing at you at the same time. Unfortunately, when you have a combination of T1 and T2/T3/T4 speed lasers, things can get quite problematic due to 2 different firing intervals. Similarly, if the T2/T3/T4 speed lasers are de-synchronized for any reason, then it becomes more difficult for one Phalanx Reflector to hold against multiple bursts of de-synchronized speed lasers.

Ion Cannon Apexes

Overcharge

• Dragonfly Gamma
• X-81 Gamma
• Polaris Beta
• Xavis Alpha

Increases the radius of the stun from 100 to 115.

This apex makes little of a difference. Under normal usage, you won't be able to see any effect from this apex.

However, when aimed correctly, an IC will much more easily stun an entire Vulture or an entire Condor. That being said, the margin of error is very small, so very precise positioning at the center of the Condor, or on the glowing cockpit of the Vulture is required. Both means require you to be right on top of the Vulture or Condor itself which is a very tough feat without first throwing an IC or 2 to stun some turrets first. This means that against a Vulture or Condor, you could potentially save one IC charge when re-stunning the Vulture or Condor. To pull off this use case is very hard and requires an experienced pilot.

Blast Amplifier

• Dragonfly Epsilon
• Barret Beta
• Sonah Gamma
• NC-271 Delta
• Polaris Gamma
• Xavis Gamma

Increases the damage blast radius of each IC projectile from 50 to 100, making the stun radius and the AoE damage radius the same. It also seems to have an unmentioned effect of somehow increasing the damage of IC from 10 to 13.

This apex is particularly useful for many IC ships since most IC ships suffer from dense waves. The blast radius of IC is now very significant and 2 ICs can kill 2 or more Ravens, even if the other Raven(s) are about 3/4 a Raven's height away. It is also a useful speedrunning tool in getting rid of pesky Sparrows as significantly more Sparrows can die with each IC. This turns IC into a viable offensive tool. The best defence is usually the best offence, so having a good offence to simply wipe Ravens and Sparrows off the field quickly is simply even better than stunning their turrets.

Goliath Missile Apexes

Proximity Detonator

• Monsoon Gamma

When a GM is within a distance of 50 from an invader at any direction, it will detonate. Any invaders in the visible proximity range of the GM when it detonates is dealt the impact damage of 10, which converts the impact damage into a very small AoE damage as well.

This apex can be considered as beginner training wheels for players learning to play GM. The slow traveling speed of GM makes it often miss, so this apex eliminates that so your GMs are almost guaranteed to hit. This sounds like it'll make the apex more fun, except that the rather large proximity radius of GMs makes it almost always detonate earlier than needed. The fact that it usually explodes in front of invades, rather than to the side of invaders also mean that the full blast circle of GMs is often not realized, dealing much less overall damage from GMs.

High Capacity (GM)

• Starless Epsilon

Increases the maximum number of counters for GMs from 4 to 5.

In community missions, this apex only benefits ships that kill so fast, there's sometimes no reason to use more GMs and thus you run the absolute risk of overflowing particles. For other GM ships, even those in the Offensive class, the rather fast rate of killing actually comes from VL itself, and not using it will instead more likely result in your death. For a speedrunning context, the cases are very rare that you will run into a situation of particle overflow, as a good speedrunner will never save up their GMs.

There are cases where it is a good idea to stockpile 5 GMs to push through an extremely difficult wave containing many large invaders with dangerous turrets, unleashing all 5 GMs to get rid of the threats. However, these situations are rare, making this apex too situational. Thus, for ships that are unable to kill at a very fast speed, this apex is useless. If you need this apex because you are overflowing on particles for offensive ships, please go improve your skills on how to use GM by reading the Goliath Missile section.

Disintegrator Warhead

• Claymore Lambda
• Banshee Phi
• Mistral Tau

Clears all bullets in the blast radius of GM, which is about 150, as shown below.

Because of the rather huge range of GM's blast damage, the amount of bullets you can clear is extremely significant. In fact, It makes a huge difference for many GM ships that have no other defences, as GM can now backup as a BEMP when there is excess of particles, particularly when transiting from a crowd heavy wave to a bulky wave (one with predominantly larger invaders such as Eagles and above). Just remember to not rely on it like BEMP, but use it as a pre-emptive BEMP where if you think you are going to get trapped, launch it. Particularly, it is extremely useful against MIRVs as an entire cluster of them can be eliminated straight away. GM travels quite slowly and thus it takes time for it to actually clear bullets. It is even more useful against Sparrows equipped with Caged MIRVs, as these Disintegrator Warheads eliminate the threat of extremely randomly dispersed pellets from Caged MIRVs (due to how rapid Sparrows move, their Caged MIRVs often go off at entirely random locations, making dodging very difficult).

The way you use GM with Disintegrator Warhead in heavier waves changes compared to normal GMs. For such heavy waves, particularly those that have invaders with MIRV turrets, you can fire a GM predictively such that before it reaches there, the MIRVs will fire and they would be instantly deleted. For high tier spread and spinner turrets, you can slowly fire a GM one by one to create a nice breathing space for yourself later. Note that in dense waves, you should still use GM per usual. GM helps to break up bullet formations and allow you space to go through the gaps in some difficult patterns.

Tungsten Warhead

• Centurion Tau

Makes both the impact and blast damage of GMs armor piercing, dealing full damage to armored invaders. Also increases the impact damage of GM from 10 to 20.

This apex makes any ship now capable of handling armor missions with brutal speedrunning efficiency. In ships that have normal GMs, against Unprotected invaders, the blast damage is able to destroy Unprotected Ravens, but not able to destroy either Shielded or Armored Ravens. This apex fixes the issue for Armored Ravens. This means that your main weapon can quickly go to work on other larger invaders instead, saving loads of time from finishing off heavily damaged Armored Ravens and switching between invaders (the latter wastes the most time, in fact). In addition, turret colliding with Ravens can be problematic so this apex simply eliminates this issue, allowing you to usually go point blank with Ravens without a fear of turret colliding.