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TheSprinter85's avatar
TheSprinter85
Hero
4 years ago

Upgrades Discussion: 80s Action Hero Upgrades!

This is the upgrade discussion for our 80s Action Hero!

Unique Upgrades

Targeting Arrows (1 upgrade point): Tags that you have placed on an enemy remain even if you get vanquished, so even when you respawn or are revived, the tags will remain. You normally lose tags that you have placed on enemies when you are vanquished, although not when you use this upgrade. Enemies will still lose their tags if they are vanquished or healed. This is great for getting back into a battle while being able to identify where your enemies are, and you can also use your Can't-Miss-ile and vanquish some previously tagged enemies quickly.

Critical Tag (3 upgrade points): Landing any critical hit on an enemy gives you 3 tags on that enemy, instead of 1, which is the maximum amount of tags you can have on an enemy at once. You do not have to hit an enemy with a fully charged shot to trigger this effect, a single critical hit will fully tag them instantly. You can simply hit an enemy with a critical hit or you could hit multiple enemies with quick critical hits, and then use your Can't-Miss-ile to get some quick vanquishes or lots of damage with additional homing. This overall makes it easier and more efficient to land tags on your enemies, just make sure to aim for critical hits where possible, and it may be better not to charge up your shots first to do this more quickly.

The Huntsman (4 upgrade points): Landing a fully charged hit on an enemy gives you 3 tags on that enemy, instead of 1, which is the maximum amount of tags that can be on an enemy at once. You do not have to deal direct damage to the enemy either, if you deal splash damage through a fully charged shot, that enemy will still be fully tagged. You just need to hit the enemy with any fully charged shot, and then after use your Can't-Miss-ile to get some fast vanquishes or significant damage with additional homing. This can make it easier to land tags on your enemies more efficiently, you could even try to splash multiple enemies with a fully charged hit for greater tag potential.

Bow Master (4 upgrade points): Vanquishing an enemy successfully allows you to charge up your Bow Blaster in only 25% of the normal time, or about 4 times faster, and this effect lasts about 3 seconds. You are able to charge up your Bow Blaster nearly instantly in this way and can deal much more damage as well. This upgrade can be great as you could vanquish an enemy with your Bow Blaster to deal lots of damage or get more vanquishes with this effect, or you can use an ability to get a vanquish and trigger this effect easily. Landing tags on your enemies will be easier to achieve with this as well, but as this effect does not last long, you should be quick about it.

Unique Ability Upgrades

Dynamite Dodge

Leg Day (2 upgrade points): You get a speed and jump boost when you activate your Dynamite Dodge, which is useful for increased mobility, jump power and can help you escape with the further distance. This could help you move position more efficiently so your enemies are less likely to notice you if you are being stealthy and will allow you to set up an attack. You could use this upgrade to make further jumps more easily as well, as both the additional movement and jump boosts will help you to clear the gap. Keep in mind as this will not improve the power of your dynamite, so this is not more effective against dealing damage to your enemies.

Track Star (3 upgrade points): Dealing damage to enemies with your Dynamite Dodge gives those enemies 3 tags, which is the maximum amount of tags that you can have on an enemy at a time. It tags nearby enemies for you as well when activated, which is an additional benefit. You can use your Dynamite Dodge when in a group of enemies, deal damage with the ability, and afterwards, you can activate your Can't-Miss-ile on those enemies for maximum homing potential. If you manage to deal damage to a group of enemies, you could potentially net a lot of quick follow-up vanquishes this way by using your Can't-Miss-ile. 

Rocket Ride

Free Ride (3 upgrade points): Your Rocket Ride ability is extended for 3 seconds for every vanquish that you get on an enemy with it, which could allow you to continuously use this ability for a really long time if you can continue getting vanquishes on enemies quickly. It almost restarts your ability entirely, or it does if you only recently activated the ability or reset it with a previous vanquish. Focusing on enemy groups or enemies that have low health is quite important as this will be the most effective way to get vanquishes. Keep moving during this ability if possible as you will be vulnerable for longer, and try to have Dynamite Dodge ready if you need to cancel it suddenly, to avoid getting vanquished easily by being in the air for ages.

Remarkable Rockets (3 upgrade points): Any enemy that you hit with your rockets during your Rocket Ride, either direct or splash damage, places 2 tags on that enemy, allowing you to quickly tag enemies, especially groups of enemies, and after you can exit or cancel Rocket Ride and use your Can't-Miss-ile to potentially get some quick vanquishes. You could use your Rocket Ride on enemies that already have a single tag or if they do not have full tags, so use this ability to place maximum tags on those enemies quickly, and to make your Can't-Miss-ile more effective. The more enemies you can tag with a use of this ability, the more useful this upgrade will become.

Can't-Miss-ile!

Improved Tracking (3 upgrade points): Dealing damage to enemies with Can't-Miss-ile places 3 tags on that enemy, which is the maximum amount of tags you can have on an enemy at once, and it reduces the cooldown time of this ability as well, allowing you to deal damage to your enemies that have tags much more efficently and frequently. Tags normally disappear from an enemy once you have hit them with a Can't-Miss-ile, however you will completely reset the tags if you hit them with this ability, and the faster cooldown means you can deal damage to your enemies more frequently. This upgrade is even more effective if you can affect multiple enemies with a use of this ability.

Super Payload (4 upgrade points): For each enemy that you target with Can't-Miss-ile, 4 extra missiles are launched against each enemy. This means you have the potential to do more damage to each affected enemy and that you are more likely to deal damage to them in the first place as well. If you can do this against enemies that have maximum tags, you have the potential of inflicting massive damage to your enemies or getting easy vanquishes against affected enemies. The extra missiles may even hit other enemies that you have not already tagged if your enemies are clustering. Tagging your enemies has never been quite this effective, until now, when it can be done in such an insane and cool way.

So they are the upgrades for the 80s Action Hero! The majority of your upgrades improve your tagging capabilities on enemies or allow you to use your abilities more frequently or for longer. 80s Action Hero mainly focuses on applying tags on the enemies, which buffs the Can't-Miss-ile ability by giving it extra damage and homing. Most of the upgrades allow you to inflict tags more efficiently or to retain tags on your enemies for longer until they are vanquished.

3 Replies

  • stukapooka's avatar
    stukapooka
    Legend
    4 years ago
    @TheSprinter85 Targeting arrows: kinda redundant because if you die what's stopping them from leaving to look for healing and you atill have to run all the way back to that specific opponent.

    Critical tag: rewards you with crits for an easy followup kill.

    The huntsman: just better critical tag and allows for easy vanquishing. Kinda cheap and too easy to use imo, especially since splash damage also fully counts.

    Bow master: great in ops.

    Leg day: good mobility on a pretty meh ability.

    Trackstar: dynamite dodge is kinda unreliable and if an enemies that close it most likely would finish them off to start with.

    Free ride: amazing in ops.

    Remarkable rockets: depends on the situation of if your rocket ride isn't already killing them.

    Improvissd tracking: strange since enemies you would cant missile would be tagged anyway or killed in the attack. Kinda redundant.

    Super payload: press button to nuke enemy. Kinda cheap to use against enemies since it can vanquish every plant character if they're not aware, especially with how easy it is to flick out tags.

    A lot of these upgrades heavily rely on cant missile which is already a pretty 50/50 ability sometimes.
  • Iron_Guard8's avatar
    Iron_Guard8
    Legend
    4 years ago

    80s is another new character I quite like. The cheesy 80s action movie music that plays during rocket ride was all I needed to like him and he's pretty fun to boot, even with his issues. Having his tags cleansed by even passing healing is a problem as the tags are already problematic thanks to how unreliable can't-miss-ile is as one big example. A lot of my critique will assume can't-miss-ile doesn't randomly fail with rockets missing targets for no readily apparent reason, even when close and with 3 tags.

    Targeting Arrow: It's cheap which is good thanks to tags being too easy to remove. Baring that, it's not bad for 1 point if your targets don't get cleansed.

    Critical Tag: This one is powerful, especially if you can hit an isolated plant with it as they can't get cleansed of the tag so easily in such a case. It can be used even on your no charge spam shots, but the idea of constant spamming of the bow is one of the character's problems, and this ability exploits that issue to the fullest. Of course, if the plants have a lot of healers and stick with them, this isn't so hot after all.

    The Huntsman: This is essentially the opposite of the previous upgrade; requiring a fully charged shot instead of a crit of any level, although it costs 1 more point. Again, healers ruin the tag system, which makes the whole idea of tags before can't-miss-ile a mess. I wonder if anyone took both of these for all 7 points to almost guarantee they get 3 tags no matter how they shoot, only to have a sunflower casually remove them all.

    Bow Master: This one is generally good as it means you can take a plant out and then almost immediately take another one out with a rapid full charge if you pick your targets well, or as usual, are facing low health AI hordes. It also is a kind of self cure for the 80s players that spam the low level shot all the time.

    Leg Day: Dynamite Dodge is yet another BfN mobility ability that just doesn't always work well. This upgrade does help a bit, as getting further out of dodge is something you definitely want to do when using dynamite dodge in the first place.

    Track Star: Great against AI hordes where you can tag all the survivors of the blast, like terracotta weeds and such. Not as good against players in general, but as you tend to play long to mid-range in BfN the enemies that get this close to you are usually more isolated from healers so you can follow up a dodge with a can't-miss-ile and take the attacker(s) out.

    Free Ride: I really like this but it is busted in PvE as you can ride the rocket for a very long time with so many low health targets. In multiplayer matches it's not as good since players will generally avoid the rockets or take you out as even with the patch changes where you can fly the rocket around, you are pretty vulnerable up there. 

    Remarkable Rockets: While the rockets will generally take out a lot of enemies that hang around, this ability can be solid if no healers are around as you can immediately follow it up with a can't-miss-ile. Another ability that can be great or can utterly fail unfortunately.

    Improved Tracking: This is perhaps the most randomly good or bad upgrade in all of BfN. Extremely good when it works as advertised and the target(s) aren't cleansed, but can be completely useless if cleansing is readily available or the rockets decide that the ground, a nearby wall, or some enemy you can't even see are better targets than that 3 tag boss right in front of you.

    Super Payload: If the tag/can't-miss-ile system worked 100% of the time, this thing would be crazy good and when things work, it certainly can be. If all worked as it should, track star with this upgrade could get you a ton of rockets when fighting on control points!

  • TheSprinter85's avatar
    TheSprinter85
    Hero
    4 years ago

    The thoughts on the upgrades:

    Targeting Arrows: Not the best and sort of situational, although really cheap so can be worth using for sure. It will not do anything if enemies get healed, although if you did not get a chance to use Can't-Miss-ile on your enemies before you get vanquished, you get another chance. I use this upgrade frequently!

    Critical Tag: This can be super useful, as you can land all of your tags on an enemy with a single shot, even if uncharged, the only requirement being that you need to land a critical hit. Critical hits can be easy to land, so just aim for your critical hits and you should fully tag an enemy in almost no time.

    The Huntsman: Simply needing to land a fully charged shot, even if it is splash damage, to fully tag an enemy, is really quite useful. Simply charge up your shots and shoot into an enemy groups and you can likely fully tag multiple enemies instantly. This upgrade could cost less to match Critical Tag, or the other way around.

    Bow Master: This is great for landing tags on your enemies more efficiently or to make your primary weapon way more powerful, regardless of how you vanquish your enemy. During this time, you can drastically improve your overall damage and you can get easier vanquishes. This is especially useful if you can utilise your Bow Blaster well.

    Leg Day: The ability does not work properly sometimes, as the dynamite will activate, although you will not get the mobility. When it works, the additional distance is great for escaping or getting back to a fight. Save your Dynamite Dodge for when you need it and you can take advantage of the extra jump height when you want to get to higher vantage points.

    Track Star: The ability to instantly give multiple enemies full tags at once is actually insane. You can leap into a group of enemies, and then use your Dynamite Dodge to provide the tags, and use Can't-Miss-ile for game! Alternatively though, use this when you start to get surrounded by your enemies and you can escape and leave missiles and dynamite behind.

    Free Ride: This upgrade is sort of a double edged sword. While it allows you to continue using Rocket Ride by vanquishing enemies, it could leave you vulnerable for longer. The longer duration is great though as you can deal even more damage to enemies or vanquish additional enemies. Just have Dynamite Dodge handy if you need to cancel your Rocket Ride membership.

    Remarkable Rockets: Against single targets, this upgrade does not do that much, although against grouped enemies, you can land tons of tags on enemies in a short time. Just try to hit each enemy in a group at least once or twice, and after you can follow up with Can't-Miss-ile for game! It does require you to not vanquish enemies with Rocket Ride for best results.

    Improved Tracking: This upgrade will allow you to consistently maintain tags on your affected enemies until they are vanquished or healed. This along with the reduced refresh time of Can't-Miss-ile by dealing damage, can allow you to use Can't-Miss-ile close to all the time, almost like a primary weapon. Super cool!

    Super Payload: You can use this upgrade to deal additional damage to tagged enemies and to improve the chances of landing successful hits on those enemies. This may not be needed in certain situations, although this upgrade is super insane as you can easily tag multiple enemies and have missiles coming out everywhere.

    80s Action Hero primarily has upgrades that allow him to tags enemies much more efficiently and with much more power. Some of these upgrades almost seem too good though, having upgrades that allow him to retain tags for longer and to keep tags even after launching the Can't-Miss-ile over and over again. If you choose your upgrades well, you can have a great time vanquishing many enemies in quick succession.

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