Apexes (Zen)

Ships

Apexes (Zen)

Apex (Zen) Details, Overall Apex (Zen) 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 name 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.

Kappa Drive Apexes

Antigrav

• Oran Beta
• Vuxine Alpha
• Zephyr Beta
• Gladius Gamma
• Marauder Alpha

Pulls in all types of particles at the same speed while Kappa is active. In other words, gold, green and blue particles are all drawn in by Kappa at the same speed with this apex, while normally green and gold particles are drawn in much slower than blue particles as they are heavier. It also increases the speed at which particles are attracted to your ship even while Kappa is not active. Particle weight is also negated even when Kappa is not active.

This apex is generally useful for offensive Auras (with the exception of LS, but no LS-Kappa ships have this apex anyway) since you can exhaust your particles faster and still as efficiently, resulting in extremely fast kills. This, however, comes at the risk of exhausting offensive means too quickly, which might make a later heavier wave significantly harder to deal with. Thus, careful usage of this apex would be necessary for offensive Aura based ships.

With defensive Aura ships, it can help when you are trapped. However, when that happens, you would have usually already exhausted all particles on screen, rendering this apex of little help. This apex is meant to be used for more pre-emptive usage, so use it to deploy your defences more pre-emptively.

Mega Laser Apexes

Focused Beam

• Tempest Delta
• Razor VI Sigma
• Arietis Epsilon
• Lorilou Epsilon

Reduces the width of ML back to 50% width of the original non-ult ML, but increases the damage of ML to 200.

This apex helps ships that rely a lot on ML to deal damage, particularly those ships of the Lightfury class. Not every ship benefits however, since some ships use ML less, and actually rely on ML as a tool of bullet clearing. One very niche usage of this apex is that the new reduced width of ML is enough to fit in between 2 front Roc turrets to pop off 1 of its back turrets.

However, despite the increase in damage, this apex makes these ships very prone to RNG, since the significantly thinner laser means that smaller invaders such as Herons or below can dodge your focused ML much more easily. This makes crowds very frustrating to deal with where a normal ML can still have a reasonably high chance of hitting them. This RNG factor is much less of an issue in daily missions since invaders are pretty much everywhere with such dense and/or heavy waves, making the increase in damage very powerful.

Armor Piercing (ML)

• Cinnri Lambda
• Hime Lambda
• Neni Delta

Makes ML deal its full 170 damage to armor invaders, no matter if it hits the cockpit of the invaders or not, increasing the offensive power of ML significantly (in fact 43%, since it is increased from 70% damage to 100% damage). You no longer have to aim at the cockpit of armor invaders just to deal the full ML damage.

If you are faced with multiple small to medium size invaders that are all lined up, this apex will still prove very useful since ML will definitely not be able to hit all their cockpits. Normal ML will thus be unable to wipe the entire column out, where else, AP ML can likely do so. If the column of small invaders is not very long (not many invaders), then a normal ML will pretty still wipe them all out and AP ML is not useful. In a frontline Vulture wave, a normal ML will likely be able to do the same damage as AP ML since you can position yourself in front of the Vulture's cockpit before it arrives, but AP ML helps you to save yourself the trouble of doing that.

AP ML can be massive help, allowing you to jump a couple of leaderboard spots up.

Double Shot

• Fujin Epsilon
• Photurius Lambda
• Hime Epsilon
• Monsoon Epsilon

Fires one ML with 100 damage that lasts the same amount of time as a normal ML after you engage touch (after ML has finished charging, of course), then, after a 1s delay, fires a second identical ML with another 100 damage. The firing location of the second ML is dependent on where your ship is after the 1s delay. However, the width of the ML is back to its pre-ult status (100% width instead of 150%).

This apex is useful against crowds of invaders in front as you can split the damage between 2 columns of invaders, clearing out more smaller invaders. It is also useful for turret sniping as you can split the 2 MLs for 2 different turrets. There is even enough delay time to hop over from the leftmost turret to the rightmost turret (or vice versa) in a Vulture. However, this apex is actually difficult to use as you need to look ahead to figure out a decent spot to go to, otherwise the second ML will miss completely, which no longer complies with the Fire and Forget nature of ML.

In speedrunning, there is usually a small reduction in DPS since your main weapon does not fire at all during the 1s delay. Given how you need to repopulate the field with your main weapon again, the extra 30 damage over normal ML may not be always worth it. Fortunately, in denser waves, this apex helps to prevent ML damage from getting wasted since 200 damage at one side of the field is usually too much for dense waves.

The small reduction in DPS can be alleviated by going into point blank range with the invaders. This speedrunning technique, along with accurate double ML aiming at armored invader cockpits, is how double ML can be faster than AP ML. However, this is a difficult task to pull off, and only for the best of speedunners.

The delay time of 1s is also sometimes a factor because in armor invaders, the second ML may not hit the cockpit. Also, a large invader may potentially die slower if it's already sufficiently damaged to the point a normal ML would actually kill it. The gameplay of such ships with this apex can be quite revolutionary due to the elimination of the Fire and Forget nature of ML and instead, having the need to actually aim a second time (after the positioning yourself for the initial charge).

Mega Bomb Apexes

EMP Core

• Veil Beta
• Krillou Alpha
• Proxymar Beta
• Qhelqod Beta

Eliminates bullets inside of the MBc only after MB is released, with a small delay.

The elimination of bullets above your core allows you to push up slightly to deploy whatever Aura you have, making the Aura effect generally a bit more worthwhile. However, this apex will not save you from dying, and should not be relied upon to get you out of your MB charging since there is some distance between MBc and core, which means if the bullet made it too close to your core, MBc will not eliminate that bullet and you will still die. Since the bullet density in community and specialist missions is not as much as daily, this apex provides very little assistance.

Compressed Blast

• Krillou Gamma
• Kada Veni Gamma
• Valkyrie Delta

Severely decreases the radius of the MB to 200, which is half the radius of a maxed MB. However, all invaders in that reduced range now take 70 damage (before armor damage reduction). The radius of the MB Compressed Blast is shown below, using the zoom level of Act 1 as reference:

Unfortunately, this apex is not very useful in community missions as you do not instant kill anything new other than armor and shield Ravens, which are severely overkilled. The decrease in range and thus allowing more invaders to escape the MB usually means that less total damage is usually actually dealt to invaders.

In daily missions, there are some waves that are extremely heavy such as 4 Eagles (and some with even 2 Herons in-between them), or waves with more than 2 Herons that make this apex possibly eliminate these heavy invaders faster. However, one needs to charge MB really close to the center of the screen, which is something not all MB ships can do. Given how spread out invaders can be in some other waves, particularly if there are Sparrows, Ravens and/or Herons separated by heavy invaders such as 2 Eagles or a Vulture, the Compressed Blast may not be able to reach them all. Thus, it's really situational if this apex will improve your times.

The Fusion Core for Compressed Blast is purplish in color compared to blue in color for normal MBc. The picture on the left below shows the normal MBc, while the picture on the right below shows the MBc for Compressed Blast (which still does 70 damage like the rest of the blast):

Extended Range (MB)

• Jn'Dur Epsilon
• Proxymar Delta
• Buhloo Gamma
• Wraith Lambda
• Kibarrax Epsilon

Increases the range of MB from 400 to 500.

This apex benefits ships that have trouble positioning themselves to charge MB, which are usually ships that have very little to no defence or those without a defensive aura. You can then charge MB all the way at some corner of the screen or at the bottom of the field and still be able to reach some of the invaders behind. This helps in later waves such as those in Act 5, or even Act 6 in community missions.

The effects are noticeable only with MB placements too close to the edge of the screen. It simply adds a small, extra level of reliability to catch all the Ravens and Sparrows at the edge of the field. This makes a difference in the world of speedrunning, since speedrunning ships have nearly none or no defence and it's not always possible to charge MB further upfield.

As dense and heavy waves often push invaders so far upfield and force you to be at the bottom of the screen, the Extended Range really helps to hit the invaders all the way upfield.

The range of normal MB is shown on the left, while the range of Extended Range MB is shown on the right.

Fast Charge

• Jn'Dur Gamma
• Juggernaut Delta
• Baqlor Lambda
• Mistral Lambda

Decreases the initial charge time of MB by 0.25s, from 2.0s to 1.75s. Charge Time Recovery is also reduced from 4.5s to 3.5s. Other parameters are unchanged.

It goes without saying that this apex is very useful due to how abusable MB can become. You can charge MBs after MBs, and take even more risks than before. If the ship defensive means, then you can abuse MB to no end as you can run into charge times as long as the defence holds up, which often means at least 1 or 2 more MBs in a row. This is not only faster, but easier since you do not need to go around the field and eliminate invaders one by one. If the ship is purely offensive, the same can be done, but usually in easier mission types that don't have turrets aiming directly at you or turning too fast to aim you.

Shield Breaker (MB)

• Veil Sigma
• Baqlor Phi

Makes the MB explosion deal 2.5 times the damage of a normal MB on invader shields, same as an SB weapon. However, MBc still does normal 30 damage (not accounting for armor damage reduction, if applicable). The shockwave damage (with the 2.5 times damage to Shields) is applied first before the normal MBc damage.

This apex wipes out Shielded Ravens completely in its MB blast, making it already very powerful. In very dense waves, just wave goodbye to the gazillion Ravens, and it is even viable to charge SB MB for 3 consecutive waves. The 2.5 times damage to shields mean that many invaders' shields go down very quickly after MB is released, making this apex very powerful. Herons and Eagles immediately get stripped of their shields, while Vultures only require a bit more damage to strip their shield. If you able to land MBc on a couple of Herons, they will be obliterated. For a Condor, 1 SB MB coupled with a bit of the ship's main weapon would strip its shield. For a Roc, 2 SB MBs spaced out by about 4s of non-SB main weapon damage strip its shield. The speed boost by this apex is very significant, which increases both speedrunning and survivability. In the case of survivability, you can immediately get to popping turrets off, meaning less bullets on field to contend with.

The picture on the left below shows the normal MBc which is blue in color, while the Fusion Core for SB MB is a deeper, royal blue as shown in the picture below on the right:

The GIF below shows how SB MB looks like in action:

Teleport Apexes

Departure EMP

• Hunter Alpha

Creates a small BEMP with a radius of 80 (normal TP Arrival EMP has a radius of 50) at the spot it TP-ed away from.

This apex is able to create a bit more clearance space ahead of you, if you TP to a location that is more downfield from the area that you TP-ed away from. If you are TP-ing to another side of the field however, there is no utility that this apex can provide you. As the use case is quite rare where you would need to TP to an area that is downfield from where you were, it's difficult to utilize the effects of this apex.

Extended Clearance

• Tillat'Or Epsilon
• Aurora Lambda
• Prime X Tau
• Vani-Vith Sigma
• Orion Lambda
• Claymore Delta

Increases the Arrival EMP range of Teleport by 60% to a radius of 80 compared to 50 for normal Arrival EMP, as shown in the screenshots below, with normal TP Arrival EMP range on the left, and Extended Clearance TP Arrival EMP range on the right.

This apex is useful in Shuriken/MIRV and Dart/MIRV missions, particularly, when employing the TP then pushback strategy. The increased clearance in space makes it easier for you to pushback, especially when faced with shuriken clouds hindering your pushback. Other than that however, the buff provided by this apex is hardly felt in other mission types.

Double Teleport

• Trireme Tau
• Czar Delta
• Sakura Epsilon

Allows you to immediately use TP again after you have arrived at your new location from the first TP, without incurring the increase in charge time for this second teleport. A subsequent TP after the second one will still suffer the charge time increase. However, the second TP must be done immediately/near immediately after you complete the first teleport. There is only just enough time for you to use one counter of your Aura, fully release your Aura (for radius based Auras) or do a very brief swipe.

This apex is quite situational based on ship, but it has a generally somewhat useful purpose for all ships with this apex. It is useful against MIRVs, where you can eliminate much more MIRVs and bullets. It is also be useful for dart tracking turret distraction since these turrets don't fire until they achieve a very brief lock-on with your core, so simply teleport to a corner and wait for the dart turrets to track you and fire before using the 2nd TP.

It is also possible to abuse a technique known as Graze then Teleport. Basically, what you do is to purposely teleport into a dense cluster of bullets, let the second teleport charge run for a while, then just before a bullet can hit you, teleport out again. This results in massive grazing from the cluster of bullets around you. The usefulness of this depends on the ship that has this apex.

In daily missions, this apex can be useful in eliminating rogue clusters of bullets that are emitted by very low tier turrets in dense and/or heavy waves. The pure density of bullets also necessitate a need for more bullet clearing options.

Explosive Arrival

• Czar Lambda
• Xaniea Lambda
• Sakura Phi
• Barret Epsilon
• Icarus Sigma
• Luna Omega

Does 30 damage in the Arrival EMP range of TP (not counting for armor damage reduction, if applicable).

This apex benefits all ships with it, no doubt, due to the additional form of damage that can now be dealt to invaders.

Ships that have a long recharge time between each burst may benefit slightly more, since explosive TP can be used to cover for periods of time where no damage is dealt, in order to finish off weakened invaders, instead of wasting their powerful main weapon burst just to finish off the job. It also benefits ships that suffer from invader crowds. Particularly, against Sparrows and Unprotected Ravens since Explosive TPs wipe them off the field immediately.

As TP is the most abusable Zen with a non-zero charge increase time, it turns any ship with it into a speedrunning ship that can deal devastating AoE damage extremely frequently. It can even be used twice in a row without much implications, provided TP has cooled down. Even though the AoE may be small, you can pre-charge teleport and let it run until you find for the perfect opportunity where many invaders get together and BOOM, teleport on them to deal lots of damage. It's just like the Tele-frag technique. 30 AoE damage is extremely significant, and can change certain main weapon interactions with invaders coupled with explosive TP.

The only thing you would want to take note for this apex is that the RNG factor associated with this apex is very high, particularly since explosive TP is highly effective on Unprotected Ravens and Sparrows, which are the invaders with the highest random movement. If you are gunning for the top with these explosive TP apexes, prepare for a ton of frustration trying to get good bunch-ups of invaders, particularly in earlier Acts. But if you are simply looking for some fun, you can use this apex without stressing over not getting too frustrated over sub-optimal placements.

Reflex EMP Apexes

Extended Range (REMP)

• Saber Epsilon
• Uhb Epsilon
• Scuuxun Tau
• Nimbus Epsilon
• Zimitr Epsilon

NB: Yigothu Omega does count as Extended Range REMP, although it also has an additional enhancement which is Manual Trigger (Works like MB, when charged, re-engage piloting to trigger the REMP). For Yigothu Omega, the apex name is Serenity.

Increases the range of REMP by 25%, from 225 to 280. Damage is unchanged.

This apex is generally useful since you can potentially deal damage to some invaders that are normally outside the normal REMP range. It is also a defensive buff since more bullets are cleared, which is definitely a welcome addition. However, it benefits some ships more than others. Ships that have difficult main weapon aiming benefit more, like those with a narrow range cone and those with no to little weapon homing capability. This is because you need to push yourself upfield less to deal the same amount of AoE damage as normal REMP. Ultimately, this translates to you being able to go back down the bottom of the field after launching REMP for damage much more quickly, and thus, potentially have less wasted DPS from your projectiles or main weapon being unable to hit invaders on your way back down.

In dense waves, the extended range catches more invaders, especially when going upfield can be dangerous. It also enables you to deal against the insane onslaught of bullets in higher rank missions, particularly, catching rogue bullets that are fired by low tier turrets in dense and/or heavy waves.

High Damage (REMP)

• Shogun Sigma
• Predator Delta
• AB8/Klyn Sigma
• Lyova Lambda
• Starless Sigma
• Jeria Sigma

Increases the AoE damage of REMP from 20 to 30.

This apex is very useful under almost all circumstances. A damage of 30 means that REMP now instantly kills Unprotected Ravens, making all ships with this apex very viable for Unprotected missions, even for ships that were not originally designed for Unprotected missions. This apex also heavily damages Armored and Shielded Ravens, rendering them extremely vulnerable to your main weapon (or just a bit more exposure to a beam weapon). This means that pesky Ravens hiding behind a Vulture can be taken out very quickly, even before the frontline Vulture's turrets start to wreck havoc from say, its spinner turrets. But even tracking turrets usually don't have enough time to flood the upfield, and you can often head back down safely through the extreme side of the field. Furthermore, with the same AoE radius, and a pretty significant buff to the damage, the increase in total damage being dealt to invaders with a correctly launched REMP is huge.

The satisfying compounded sound of the REMP dealing damage to the gazillion invaders on field either completely obliterates Unprotected Ravens or severely damages other affinities of Ravens, leaving them so vulnerable to the slightest touch of an offensive Aura or your main weapon. The increase in overall damage dealt from an increase in 10 AoE damage is simply understated and unexplainable, compared to a normal REMP. This makes any such ship with this apex a tremendous boost over its base form.

Having REMP deal 30 damage is basically an extremely fast charging version of MB, although missing the MBc damage. Although missing the additional 40 MBc damage, in return for that, you have very fast charging and even clearing bullets. The latter advantage is the reason why High Damage REMP Apexes do so much better in bullet heavy missions than MB ships.

The AoE damage is so powerful, that you would really only need to use REMP as defence in very heavy waves, such as when fighting a Condor, Roc, Vulture or against 4 or more Eagles. Because of all the other invaders would be dead before they can flood the field with bullets and lasers.

Personal Shield Apexes

Supersize

• Phoenix Beta
• Atlas Alpha
• Lokie Alpha
• NC-271 Beta
• Zhetass Gamma

Increases the diameter of PS by 50%.

This apex is actually very useful, and ships with this apex are generally quite cheap to purchase, which makes this apex generally a worthwhile investment. The most obvious buff is the fact you can potentially reflect more lasers since the area of laser catch is much wider. This usually makes for much larger reflection damage compared to normal PS since some T1 low Mk lasers that have poor tracking ability may not be able to target your core in time.

But the second more useful and less obvious buff is the fact that the supersize PS can clear a lot more bullets than normal PS. The increase in size also means you can clear away much more space and open up more pathways for you to escape after exiting PS. Combined with the Phase Out time of PS, where the bigger Phase Out PS can clear even more bullets, this apex actually turns PS into a viable bullet defense, increasing the survivability of the ships with this apex against bullets.

Shield Booster

• Centurion Epsilon

Increases the time in which Personal Shield is still active after re-engaging touch from about 0.25s to 1s. Maximum duration is not affected. If the Personal Shield is allowed to fully expire, this apex also has no effect.

This is an interesting apex which turns PS into a pseudo Phalanx. Using this apex, you are able to eliminate more bullets the more you move. The more daring you are willing to take this apex, the better it'll get. Unlike Phalanx, you can shovel in any direction you want, or even shovel in a weird S shape. You can use this flexibility to eliminate pellets released from MIRVs even if they are spread across a wide wavefront. It's a very good get out of bullet jail apex which allows you to change sides of the field, particularly when a gigantic shuriken cloud has blocked your way.

Focus

• Jericho Gamma
• Gorthaur Alpha
• Zhetass Beta

Decreases the Charge Time Recovery from 6.5s to 4.5s and decreases the base charge time from 0.4s to 0.3s.

This apex turns PS ships with the apex into much more survivable ships due to the increased ability to deploy PS. In longer waves, such as heavier waves in Act 5 of Marshal rank, you can use it twice. This is particularly useful especially against speed lasers, which reload quickly. You can now use PS every 2 rounds of T2/T3/T4 speed lasers aiming at you.

Super Reflect

• NC-150 Beta
• Essin Gamma
• Torrent Beta
• Njörun Gamma
• Widget Delta

Allows PS to deal 5 times the normal Laser Reflection damage, but only if the lasers are incident in PS within a very short initial activation duration which is roughly only 0.5s. An hexagon shaped PS indicates this duration, and lasers reflected during this duration will have an extra large width, although they suffer the same random targeting nature. As a reference, 8 laser super reflected (with a bit of prior damage to the Shield with a 34.375 DPS SB weapon) instantly destroys a Shielded Roc.

Below shows an image of along with how the hexagon shaped PS will look like, how a super reflected laser looks like, and a reference to a normal invader laser (normal reflected lasers have the same width but they are purplish in color, the same as the color of the super reflected laser in this screenshot).

Who doesn't welcome some SERIOUS extra damage right? With quite a bit of practice, you will be able to identify the correct timing to release your touch such that the lasers will hit your hexagon shaped PS to deal extra laser reflect damage. The super reflected lasers still suffer from the random targeting nature, thus it is possible that not all invaders may die even with many lasers on field, but for sure the bigger invaders will go down.

This apex is the most useful against the boss invaders (Condors and Rocs) as lasers from these invaders either heavily damage or completely decimate these invaders. Never again will you have to face such a difficult boss invader filled with both lasers and insane bullet spinners. Just beware of the next wave after such boss invader waves because they can be very deadly and you will not have enough time for PS to recover to reflect the next wave of lasers.

This apex is also useful if most of the lasers come from upfield, and there are invaders downfield to tank the damage, since there is significantly less chance that the super reflected lasers are able to directly hit the source of the lasers, so they will deal the full super reflected damage.

However, against speed lasers, Super Reflect apexes are less useful since speed lasers fire in shorter bursts compared to normal lasers, which means super reflected speed lasers probably do as much as damage as normal reflected lasers. Speed lasers also reload very quickly, making it difficult to use a second Super Reflect PS against them, since they are unlikely to go down after the first Super Reflect due to the lack of damage against them. Another issue is that speed lasers don't all activate at the same time, making it very difficult to have all the speed lasers be super reflected back at invaders. It still beats out normal PS, but its effects are not as noticeable.

However, for most other waves, this apex is generally not very useful as it is difficult to reflect lasers from upfield invaders to hit frontline invaders. It is more efficient to use an Aura which refills very quickly, particularly in dense waves. The slow recovery rate of PS also make this apex slightly harder to use, and best reserved only for heavy waves.

Because community missions features significantly less amount of lasers, the effects of this apex is a bit more difficult to feel. Thankfully, community missions don't feature speed lasers so Super Reflect apexes can still deal full super reflected damage where possible.

Focus Lance Apexes

High Voltage

• Disaris Sigma

Stuns the turret that it hits, with a leeway of a radius of about 10.

There is no point to stun a turret when FL can simply be used to delete the turret entirely. In addition, FL's usage is better realized to destroy Ravens rather than doing turret popping. (I mean, eliminate 2 turrets from a Raven rather than 1 turret, right?) It's possible only usage only comes when dealing against Condors or Rocs where one FL cannot pop it off. Even so, stunning one turret very briefly does very little help, especially on exposed turrets of Condors and Rocs that often reload quickly.

FTL (Faster Than Light)

• Warden Sigma

Turns the FL into a laser with zero travel time to deal damage to all targets in the vertical line once charged.

Not to be confused with the game of the same name, this apex alleviates the RNG associated with invaders moving about. This is particularly relevant as Ravens can often dodge the FL being launched at them. With only one factor at play which is the charging time, rather than both the charging time of FL and the travel time of FL, this apex makes FL a bit more responsive and easier to play with as Ravens have less time to dodge the FL. Sparrows however, are still too nimble to catch with the FTL FL.

Lance Wake

• Reaper Lambda

Makes the lance produced from FL clear bullets in its path, just like an ult VL.

On the left is how a normal FL looks like, while on the right is how the Lance Wake FL looks like:

Just as how useful you may find Vorpal Wake to be, especially in Full Offence ships, this apex makes ships without a defensive Aura a bit more survivable as riding a lance can save your life, particularly when completely cornered with no way out. Given that FL can be somewhat abused, you won't find yourself trapped so easily when you could charge FL again after quite a short time. However, unlike VL where you can stockpile lances, this is a one-time use for quite a period of time so be sure to plan a proper place to shoot it at to get out of tight situations. It is best to pick a thin wall where you are comfortable to ride out of.

Expert Focus

• Banshee Sigma
• Stinger Lambda

Decrease the charge time of FL from 0.35s to 0.25s and the recovery time from 4.5s to 3.5s.

Being able to abuse FL more definitely makes FL ships slightly more fun to play with, when you can tear through invader lines a bit more often. Particularly, this apex allows you to use FL twice in a wave in Act 4 and 5 of higher ranks, or use an FL every wave in Act 3. Knowing this however, means that you need to be prepared to find a good spot to fire off a second FL mid-wave. Increasing the recovery time of FL still does not make FL very abusable, compared to VL which is much easier to abuse.

Clover ATS Apexes

Ion Warheads (CATS)

• Esperon Sigma

Makes each missile of CATS 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.

With only 4 missiles from CATS, at best, it would only stun 4 turrets. However, the situation is far from ideal as CATS will more likely hit downfield invaders first, which are more likely to be smaller invaders like Ravens or Herons. As Ravens die easily from just 2 missiles of CATS, it's more likely that the CATS missiles would not even reach more dangerous turrets on bigger invaders like Vultures. With only 4 missiles, and no control over them, it is very difficult to ascertain that the missiles will hit a dangerous turret at all.

Due to limited amount of turrets this apex can stun, more likely than not, it will cause the turrets to be de-synchronized instead, which potentially causes more problems., especially when it hits some lasers and does not hit other lasers.

Double Clover

• Pandora Lambda

Doubles the number of missiles in CATS from 4 to 8. The damage of each missile is now 9 instead of 18, so the total damage stays the same.

This apex alleviates some of the flaws of CATS. Having each missile deal 9 damage reduces the overkill of CATS missiles on Sparrows. However, a Raven still requires 4 missiles of Double CATS (unless against Unprotected Ravens, which have precisely 27 health, so 3 Double CATS missiles). This is almost equivalent to simply 2 missiles of normal CATS, so there is not much difference. Thus, this apex is only good against waves with mostly Sparrows with some other invaders. It is simply easier to just eliminate the Sparrows first before launching CATS.

Shield Breaker (CATS)

• Naya Phi

Makes the missiles of CATS deal 2.5 times the normal damage to invader shields.

This apex allows CATS to deal 180 damage to invader shields, which is significant. However, this is only useful for the initial burst of CATS fired just as a Roc or Condor arrives, as the recovery time of CATS mean that before the next SB CATS can be fired, the invader shield of a Roc or Condor would be already downed.

Unfortunately, there is no change of interaction between the CATS missiles and Ravens or Sparrows. 2 CATS missiles will still take out a Shielded Raven anyway. For Herons, it is possible that 3 SB CATS missiles will now take out a Shielded Heron instead of 4. For other invaders, 4 SB CATS missiles would still not be enough to destroy them, but it would help to eliminate them faster. It is likely possible to see the effects of SB CATS by seeing how Eagles and Vultures will start catching more fire compared to normal CATS.