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Beginner Friendliness List

Phoenix II  —FAQ (IOS)

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FAQ (IOS) by light_rock_zz

Version: 3.1 | Updated: 06/20/2024
FAQ of the Month Winner: January 2020 | Highest Rated Guide

Tier List (Introduction)

Beginner Friendliness List

Beginner friendly ships are great ships to pick up basic Phoenix 2 skills such as dodging, using Auras & Zens, and sometimes aiming. They are easy to pick up, hence the name. These ships are also great survival ships that will help a player get into the gold ranks easily (suitable for bronze and silver ranks). Beyond that however, it is high likely a player would need to invest in a ship with a better survivability rating.

There will not be any specific explanations in each ship to explain why it is beginner friendly. Instead, it will be explained here. Some synergy is considered between the main weapon, the Aura & Zen. If one aids the usage of the other, it is a lot more beginner friendly. On the converse, if there is an anti-synergy between any of the 3, main weapon, Aura & Zen, it is more likely to be not considered as beginner friendly.

Auto aiming weapons are a huge factor towards beginner friendliness. Any type of auto aiming weapon, or instant tracking weapons are a huge plus to beginner friendliness.

Straight firing and spread weapons are neutral; this is because while they can still hit, not being able to destroy invaders quickly enough means getting overwhelmed by bullets (and lasers), which isn't a good thing. If a weapon is cone triggered, and the cone is narrow, then it is definitely not beginner friendly. Some of these weapons also act in a strange manner, such as slowly accelerating forward, or being spaced very far apart. These of these factors are considered to be less beginner friendly. While there are auto aiming or instant tracking weapons that exhibit some of these strange behaviours, as it does not significantly impact how a beginner player controls the ship, they will not be taken into account for these beginner friendly weapon types.

In the table below, the beginner friendliness are rated from the highest S rating, to the lowest D rating.

Aura/ZenBeginner FriendlinessExplanation
Bullet EMP SActivate to clear bullets, BEMP is the simplest of Auras to understand. It does not defend against lasers, but it is obvious in its name. A BEMP can save players even in the smallest of aura radius, making it very beginner friendly.
Stun EMP BStunning turrets is something that is less straightforward to a beginner. It is easy to simply continue about one's business and just dodge the bullets already on field. But SEMP's true purpose is to allow players to eliminate turrets and invaders that are most threatening, a skill that requires good judgment. The need to use SEMP at the start of the wave is counter intuitive to beginners, where pre-emptive usage is a slightly more foreign concept to them. Also, a small SEMP does little to help since the stun duration is too short and de-synchronizes turrets, creating more trouble.
Barrier ATo use barriers as a beginner is easy, simply put it around your own ship to protect from bullets and lasers. Note that this is not optimal at ult level, but it is not usually necessary at beginner levels. The only problem about barriers is the most last minute barrier will not protect you from bullets, something which beginners need to understand.
Laser Storm SWith a large reaching radius, and simply activate and let it do its job to compliment your damage, it's a pretty straightforward offensive based Aura. The only problem comes when a beginner attempts to activate it while the radius is too small, which causes it to do nothing.
Missile Swarm AIts Fire and Forget nature makes it quite easy for beginners to use. Simply lock on once and then let it do its thing. The only problem comes when the beginner activates MS too quickly (which may cause some bigger targets to be not locked onto), or when the radius of MS is too small and only very few small targets are selected, which causes a large wastage.
Point Defence SActivate when bullets are near you, this is another straightforward Aura that is very similar to BEMP. Compared to BEMP, PD is not a one-time use, making it even more easy for beginners, especially in early ranks where bullets are much fewer.
Chrono Field DArguably, the hardest skill to operate. Slowing bullets in the field easily causes panic among beginners, and once it wears off, when the invincibility wears off later, it is easy to get trapped in the bullet field. The main caveat of CF is to Chrono Hop and use the time inside (or peek outside for a short while) CF to eliminate the most threatening turrets or invaders. Knowing what to eliminate takes a lot of good judgment. The skill to Chrono Hop is also a very difficult skill, as it is essentially using TP without having the arrival EMP skill when you arrive at your desired spot.
Vorpal Lance AIt's difficult to know at what spot one should throw VL, as beginners don't often remember the upcoming waves. Thus, usually what a beginner would do is to see the wave, make a decision of where to use VL, move to the spot, and then throw VL. It's a fair bit of steps, which can be hindered with the presence of leftover bullets from the previous wave.
Phalanx A/B

Phalanx by itself is a weak barrier that only appears in front of your ship. When faced with many bullets, a phalanx has to be used as a shovel, which is something that is rather counter-intuitive for a beginner who is concerned about losing their protection after shoveling (which is almost certain to happen), who is more likely to allow their phalanxes to simply slowly soak up damage, causing it to break quickly. Shoveling with Phalanxes is also a skill, as players need to understand how far they can shovel before they cannot shovel further. Like barrier, a phalanx does not save a player from last minute bullets.

One thing to note is Phalanx is actually a pretty good ability at lower ranks, due to the lower density of bullets, allowing them to last quite long. But once you reach the higher gold ranks, Phalanx has to be used differently. Thus, Phalanx is an A at lower ranks, but a B at higher ranks.

Ion Cannon CThe need to delicately aim ICs properly, as well as the relatively slow speed of ICs is very difficult for beginnners
Goliath Missile CThe extremely slow moving nature of GMs make it very hard to use, often missing invaders.
Kappa Drive SRelease to gain more Aura, it's as simple as that. The Kappa Overdrive ult which slows time, is also beneficial for beginners who can then have more time to figure out where they would like to go next.
Mega Laser BA fairly straightforward offensive Zen. Generally, most beginners only will charge at the start of each Act. The long charge time unfortunately means positioning is key, a skill that takes a lot of time to master. Positioning is not a huge issue with the ult, as somewhere slightly offset to the middle will do nicely. Being able to be at the bottom of the screen also helps a bit more in positioning.
Mega Bomb BA fairly straightforward offensive Zen. Generally, most beginners only will charge at the start of each Act. The long charge time unfortunately means positioning is key, a skill that takes a lot of time to master. Slightly more difficult than ML as positioning too low will cause MB to be ineffective, causing problems later on.
Teleport CKnowing the correct spot to TP to takes a lot of practice, making TP one of the hardest abilities to use. Teleporting to the wrong spot causes you to be trapped, causing players to spam TP until they die because the charge time of TP becomes too long.
Reflex EMP BAlthough straightforward in clearing bullets, the charge time of REMP is quite a problem as it can be quite significant, especially in the presence of faster bullets like darts and boomerangs. It actually takes some skill to judge the correct time to release REMP so you get quite a good use out of it.
Personal Shield ALet go and be completely invincible against bullets and lasers. It's simple. The charge time is low, which means not much pre-emption is required. The only other issue is that PS doesn't last forever, which is something that is easily forgotten by beginners.
Focus Lance BIt's difficult to know at what spot one should charge FL, as beginners don't often remember the upcoming waves. Thus, usually what a beginner would do is to see the wave, make a decision of where to charge, move to the spot, and then charge it. It sounds like a lot of steps, which can be hindered with the presence of leftover bullets from the previous wave. FL also doesn't travel very fast, so imprecise movements, coupled with RNG and the considerably long charge time, can easily cause FLs to miss the players' intended targets. It's just basically a harder version of VL, vulnerable to more RNG.
Clover ATS AA straightforward offensive Zen. Charge at the start of each wave or 2, and let the homing CATS missiles do their job. The pretty low charge time is also nice, and the lack of a need to aim means a beginner can simply find a safe spot to charge CATS and let it do its own work.

The following ships are very beginner friendly ships. These ships are suitable for use when first starting out the game.

The following ships are still rather beginner friendly, and you should expect to pick it up quite easily, although it might take slightly longer.

The ships below are suitable to learn the different Auras & Zens.

You will not see a ship that is easy to learn BEMP, LS, PD & Kappa as some of these abilities can be learned from ships above. There will not be a beginner friendly ship to learn Barrier as well, as the optimal usage of barrier differs from ship to ship; some barrier ships benefit from putting barriers upfield, other ships just don't have enough benefit from putting barriers upfield and are more likely to place barriers at the bottom of the screen instead.

Aura Beginner Friendly Ships to learn Aura
Stun EMP

Torrent, Nimbus

Missile Swarm Prime X
Chrono Field Njörun
Vorpal Lance Vani-Vith
Phalanx

Marauder

Ion Cannon Barret
Goliath Missile Claymore
Zen Beginner Friendly Ships to learn Zen
Mega Laser

Tempest

Mega Bomb

Veil, Qhelqod

Teleport

Orion, Luna

Reflex EMP

Lyova, AB8/Klyn

Personal Shield

Jericho, Phoenix

Focus Lance

Disaris

Clover ATS

Esperon