This isn't even taking into account that in real terms you've probably got All Forward up, making the Phoenix's peak Melee damage 600 in most situations. A couple of Assaults can easily be missing a decent amount and still kill the Ryder with Energy left over to hit something else. There's only a handful of Ryder types that are tough enough to survive 500 damage, and the most common enemy Ryder has a mere 375 HP. Sure, Assault will miss some of its shots, but quite frankly the Phoenix's Melee is overkill against most targets when both strikes do hit. Either that or you have the Liberty toss a Flak Off out, but even that comes with caveats if multiple enemy Ryders are clumped together, for example, a single Flak Off might be inadequate for letting the Phoenix approach to melee while avoiding being shot. The Energy cost is so high that even with the Phoenix's low Energy cost for movement it's fairly difficult to find an opportunity to close in on a target, melee it, and then retreat back to the fleet, and the Phoenix's Assault weaponry can often dish out more damage in real terms by standing back and spraying bullets: burning 40 Energy on one 500 damage attack+60 Energy on advancing and retreating? When you could've advanced one tile and used Assault three times for up to 720 damage? Not only that, but the above numbers are misleading: against most targets, the Phoenix won't be able to advance without getting shot up unless it burns Energy on Stealth, restricting how far out it can range while still coming back. Unfortunately, even though the Phoenix is clearly intended to lean heavily on its Melee attack, in actual play this is almost always a bad idea. This is honestly a pretty decent reason to try to keep it alive if you can shots taken at it are shots not taken at the Sunrider or some other unit you'll need to repair.Įven less accurate than the Blackjack's Melee, but it hits harder (No Ryder has enough Armor to render this false: they'd need more than 50 Armor) and due to hitting twice it's unusual for it to do no damage. They'll still insist on firing on it anyway. More often than not, enemies taking a shot at it will accomplish nothing. The Phoenix's monstrous 50 Evasion is the primary way it avoids dying horribly. Not because the Flak is all that great (20% is pretty meh) but because the Phoenix is severely hampered by how contrary it is to the game design. In real terms this Flak value is actually going to be a surprising amount of the Phoenix's utility. They're cheaper by enough that buying three or four HP upgrades for the Phoenix is doubling or more its overall durability for less than the 1500$ needed to boost its Armor by 2, and there is no max HP rot effect like there is with Armor. You should buy HP upgrades first, though. This does a lot to help the Phoenix's survivability. I like to buy two Armor upgrades: the majority of the time it takes damage will be due to Assault weaponry or Missiles, and against Assault weaponry you're easily shaving off like a third of the damage with just two upgrades. Fortunately, 300$ is always a minor cost, so that's not a big burden even when you first get the Phoenix. It's important to get the first couple of HP upgrades fairly quickly, as 300 HP is low enough an alarming enough of enemy attacks will outright one-shot the Phoenix. The Phoenix is really fragile, and unlike the Liberty it's going to get shot at. Max Energy of 110 is always able to do something over 100 max Energy, where other units require Energy cost reductions on weapons for that to lead to anything useful. That said, this does mean it's a fairly easy choice to buy it a couple of engine upgrades. The Phoenix is your single fastest unit, period.
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