Spawnable discussion: Bamboo shoot and Uplink bot

Time to rain from above with these summonables!

Introduction

The Bamboo Shoot and Uplink Bot are some of my favourite summonables, and they are summonable variants that attack using airstrikes that have very good range. This actually means that they can be placed in hidden areas which means it is more difficult for enemies to hunt them down and vanquish them, and overall they can be really effective. They have about average health, which is fine as they can be placed in hidden areas. They do work in similar fashions to their counterparts, although there are some differences. The Bamboo Shoot shoots loads of projectiles, and each does not deal much damage. The Uplink Bot shoots a single projectile, although it does a lot of damage when it hits an enemy. The Bamboo Shoot can deal more damage overall, but the Uplink Bot has more health.

NOTE: There is a legendary summonable variant called the DJ Uplink Bot, which is an upgrade to the Uplink Bot which is hard to get, which I will discuss shortly. The Bamboo Shoot does not have a legendary variant, however there is actually a different legendary variant for a different plant summonable.

My Thoughts

These summonables can actually be extremely effective and can be difficult to defeat. The reason for this is because they can be placed in hidden areas and so it can be hard to track where these summonables have been placed, their attacks can catch you by surprise and they can even deal damage to you while you are behind cover as they attack through airstrikes. They can also attack from a really good range as well, meaning it can be even harder to track them down as they could be attacking from nearby or far away. These summonables can be really effective, so changes that I suggest include slightly increasing their attack rate, however making it so the shots take longer to explode and deal damage, and increasing the health of Bamboo Shoot to equal that of Uplink Bot, but to reduce the damage to match the Uplink Bot as well

I give these summonables a Hard difficulty to defeat. They are unpredictable as you may not even know that one of these summonables are around at all until you are hit by it or see the airstrike land somewhere else. It is hard to make use of cover as these summonables completely bypass that, and their direct damage is quite insane, it can deal enough damage to vanquish you if you are below half health or around that in some cases. You can sometimes see where the airstrikes are being summoned from, and can therefore find the location of these summonables, so keep an eye out for that. Keep on the move if you need to avoid the airstrikes as they take a while to land and you have time to react. If you are looking around for any of these summonable variants and you find one, take it out quickly to neutralise the threat.

The Bamboo Shoot and Uplink Bot are not present in Battle for Neighborville, but if they were in the game, I would actually give them a 5 minute cooldown. They can prove to be really effective against enemies as the location of these summonables can be hidden and they are still able to shoot from above from unsuspecting enemies from nearly any range, they can deal lots of damage to enemies in an area, so I believe that a significant cooldown is needed to prevent these summonables being overused and possibly overwhelming enemies in some situations. They are fairly fragile and they could be tracked down quite easily if a player detects where the shots are coming from, but a significant cooldown should be sufficient for these summonables.

In A Future Shooter

I would really like to see these summonables in the future potentially in a future shooter. They can be really powerful and hard to track where the shots are coming from, so they should be quite expensive to get hold of, especially in larger numbers, as they should not be easily spammable. I would suggest a cost of 5,000 Coins each for these for this reason, and an unlock cost of 20,000 Coins each per faction, although you would get a bundle of 5 to start you out, which actually provides excellent value on the unlock. Hopefully, this should provide coverage on preventing spamming of these summonable variants as they are very powerful.

Overall

Because of how powerful they are currently, and the fact that they have great range and they can easily be hidden from enemies, I recommend making them quite hard to get hold of, especially in large numbers if that is what players want to spend their currency on. I would recommend an unlock cost as well to make them harder to get hold of at the start, but once obtained they may be freely purchased by the player. These are really powerful summonables, although changes I would suggest include giving the Bamboo Shoot less damage to match that of the Uplink Bot, and giving the Uplink Bot less health to match that of the Bamboo Shoot, and to increase their rate of fire a little bit, but to increase the delay before the projectiles explode, which gives enemies more time to react and get away from the shots.

DJ UPLINK BOT

There is a legendary summonable called the DJ Uplink Bot which is a legendary variant of the Uplink Bot, and it is only available in GW2. The DJ Uplink Bot has more health, more damage and a faster rate of fire, which essentially makes it a significant upgrade from the regular variant. Currently, the only way to obtain it in GW2 is to obtain them in DLCs. Rux used to sell them from time to time, but I do not know if this is still the case. 

I think this legendary summonable should absolutely be obtainable in a future shooter. I recommend the way to obtain them in a future shooter is to either get them rarely in Sticker Packs, rarely from Rux or you would get them as an exclusive reward for purchasing a bundle. It may only be available some of the time for purchase (depending on how it is obtained) and cost more Coins than normal, or have a different currency attached to its purchase, such as a premium currency (I would assume would be obtainable without having to spend real money if players would like to).