Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Skylanders Trap Team: Bat Spin Upgrades and Attack Damage Numbers

Bat Spin has a nice combination of box stock attacks.  Bat Attack works two fold in that you shoot out a bat that does 39-58 on impact and then deals an additional 8-12 damage with subsequent bites.  The life span is roughly 8 seconds at this point in time.  The only weakness here is that a maximum number of “additional hits” are hard to come by since the bats are somewhat relaxed and won’t always seek out the enemy with great effort.  Bat Swarm summons bats and sends them in a swirl that quickly shrinks down.  If you stand at a point blank range, the bats will do 60-90 on impact for roughly 6 hits.

Base Attacks


Bat Spin boasts some very balanced base upgrades.  Healing Bite offers up the classic Undead Element way of gaining health.  If Bat Spin shoots out a bat with Bat Attack they do 39-58 as mentioned above.  At this point in time, they can not grant you health.  However, once they have “bit” an enemy (see the 8-12 additional damage) they grant you +3 Health.  As best I can tell, each subsequent bite delivers an additional +3.  It is very unlikely to get more than +6 from a single bat at this point in time given how lax they are around enemies.  Nonetheless, you can’t  argue with what is essentially a semi-automatic health regeneration!  Next up is Brawny Bats.  This upgrade is multifaceted.  First off, the life cycle of a bat from Bat Attack doubles from 8 to 16 seconds.  The 39-58 impact remains the same, but now the 8-12 after the hit bite clocks in at 16-24, which again is double the previous output.  Another key aspect here is that Bat Swarm bumps up from 60-90 to 78-117.  In this form you can see your +3 move on to +12s and even +15 if you get lucky.  I do believe this remains proportional to the number of times the bat has attacked and dealt damage..Case in point, grab a bat right after the first bite and you’ll get +3.  Go Batty! Is up next and it is a very unique upgrade, and quite formidable!  This is Bat Spin’s tertiary attack and it transforms her ghoulish self into a large, flying bat.  She can stay in this form indefinitely.  If you execute a primary attack in Go Batty, she will bite.  This deals a devastating 150-225!  A hit of the secondary attack button while in Go Batty and you deliver 56-84 3x via Screech.  Lastly, A Colony of Bats seems to let you have 8 or so bats active at once…obviously, this is advantageous in any situation.

Pet Purveyor


This path strikes me as more of a “hands off” approach.  If you are of the mindset that you’d rather sit back and only contest enemies when you must, or like to play very defensively, this path is for you.  I found it extremely hard to document, and thus fully appreciate.  The vague descriptions and lack of first hand scenarios matching them do not do much to bolster this path.  Essentially you add 3 special bats which are always active.  Mr. Dizzy stuns and confuses enemies.  I never really saw this happen in my limited attempts, but that also means it would be just as hard to appreciate over a longer interval.  I have faith it works, but I didn’t see any glaring instances where I found myself cheering for Mr. Dizzy.  Mr. Blocky is said to protect you by deflecting projectiles.  I saw the armor icon a few times, but nothing to get excited about.  Mr. Bitey was actually quantitative.  If you see a 75-112 on screen you can trace down Mr. Bitey and watch him rip off further instances of the numbers.  I think, despite how hard it is to tell what the path is really doing, and how well it is working, that you would have a pretty solid character with this path.  I’m also fairly certain there are certain locations this path would show much better than it did in the video.  However, I do haveideas to make this path significantly better.  I am fine with the bats being present as it is unique and reflective of the level of upgrades your Bat Spin has.  However, let’s make Mr. Dizzy generate +x Critical Hit.  Mr. Blocky would, of course, grant +40 Armor.  Mr. Bitey could maintain his 75-112, but what if that also applied (in the same, or a lesser degree) to your Bat Attack bats?  Maybe making the 39-58 a 45-67 and then additional damage coming by way of 32-48 bites and intervals of +4 Health.  That sounds really good to me…quantitative and functional!

Bat Betterment


This path upgrade the previously untouched bat form attacks that came with Go Batty!.  Bat-tle Cry takes the Screech from 56-84 all the way up to 84-126!  Furthermore, if you screech at bats from bat attack they know deal 32-48 when they bit enemies.  Ultimate Bat Squad, as best I can tell lets 8 bats fly with you…If you get in good space, this actually looks really cool.  Plus, if you are about to enter a hot bed of enemies, you can simply bring in a full arsenal of bats, screech at them, and then fly into battle!  Chiropteran Call keeps the bat form bite at 150-225, but shoots out 3 bats at once!  This is a big deal because these are the same bats you get from Bat Attack.  So essentially you do 150-225 from the bite and then immediately have 39-58 3x for the bats AND after that they are free to fly around biting enemies to deal 16-24, or 32-48 if you screech at them.  That damage adds up very quickly!  The biggest advantage though is that you can now stay in bat mode and get bats…previously we had to switch back to regular form and fire them off via Bat Attack.

Soul Gem

Great Balls of Bats!  Looks like the greatest upgrade of all time in the training grounds.  It deals 156-234 damage.  However, if you hold it (charges roughly 2-3 seconds) you can keep it active and deal 156-234 endlessly at extremely fast intervals.  Sadly, this only works at the training grounds…in a gameplay situation, Bat Spin can hold it, but the ball shoots of quickly.  It does pass through enemies so it can sometimes dish out a few counts of 156-234, but more often than not it will only do so one time.  That said, I fully recommend you try it out at the training grounds!

Bat Spin Attack Damage Numbers



Conclusion


Bat Spin is a very solid character.  I think you can do well with either path, but I find it difficult to fully appreciate the Pet Purveyor path, especially when I can see and document exactly what Bat Betterment offers.  Clearly, these paths are both unique, but are spectrums apart in terms of style.  If you hate her bat form via Go Batty!, you will want to stay away from it.  In my opinion, Bat Betterment is more  of a “get in there and fight” type of a path while Pet Purveyor rewards you more for standing back and letting the bats do more of the grunt work.  You could easily argue that Go Batty!, is strong enough on its’ own merits to warrant taking Pet Purveyor.   You could also argue that the gains from Bat Betterment outweigh Pet Purveyor’s vague nature.  I think most will select the path based on their play style.  Despite not seeing much from Pet Purveyor, I still think it has potential, but for me personally I would pick Bat Betterment and I fully recommend it.

No comments:

Post a Comment