Upgrades Discussion: Cactus Upgrades!

This is the upgrade discussion post for the Cactus!

Unique Upgrades

Pressure Point (2 upgrade points): When you get a critical vanquish on an enemy, there is a 75% chance of creating an explosion, which deals 35 damage to other enemies which are close to where that enemy was vanquished. When you get this effect, this can be used to your advantage by attacking grouped enemies, earning a critical vanquish against an enemy, and hopefully that enemy will explode, which will deal additional damage to the nearby enemies or possibly give you bonus vanquishes. This does rely on earning a critical hit for the vanquish, and the effect triggering since it will not always trigger, but it is a great upgrade to utilise on multiple clustered enemies.

Mirage (2 upgrade points): When you are zooming in, your vision is improved by about 50%. Zooming in normally impairs your vision, but allows you to attack from further distances and with greater precision, although with this upgrade, you can mitigate the impaired vision and will be able to see approaching enemies more easily while zoomed. You are normally quite vulnerable to surprise enemy attacks when you are zooming in as they can attack in your blind spot, but if you run this upgrade, you are more likely to be able to notice them coming toward you. Improved sense equals lower chance of surprise attacks.

Looting (3 upgrade points): When you earn a critical vanquish on an enemy, you will recieve some ammo back, making the need for reloading more redundant if you can land your critical hits quite easily. This can allow you to continue sniping without needing to reload if you can land your critical hits and get those vanquishes. The ammo you gain back will depend on the charged shot that dealt the most damage, so the exact ammo you can get will vary, although, basically more damage equals more ammo. Fuel through that critical damage on your enemies and keep firing without the need of reloading, which could potentially leave you vulnerable in direct combat.

Calibrated (4 upgrade points): Dealing damage with your Spike Shot will allow you to charge up your Spike Shot faster to deal maximum damage more frequently. This effect will stack and will remain until you next reload, so if you can achieve these effects while you have plenty of ammo left or can find a way to restore ammo without needing to reload, this effect can be used to charge up maximum damage Spike Shot attacks at an amazing rate. You do not have to fully charge your Spike Shot to get this effect, so you could start with hitting your enemies with weaker attacks to save ammo and get the effect, for improved efficiency.

Unique Ability Upgrades

Potato Mine

Spud Spotting (2 upgrade points): Any enemy, and their health, that is close to any of your Potato Mines will be revealed to you and your team, allowing you to identify where some enemies are efficiently, and allowing all of your allies to see the revealed enemies will be even more useful. You and your allies can track those enemies, and you can place your Potato Mines in different and useful locations to get more out of this effect. You should take into the consideration that enemies could destroy your Potato Mines to negate the effect, and enemies must be close to your Potato Mines to gain this additional effect, so try and be strategic about where you place them.

Popcorn (4 upgrade points): When you vanquish an enemy with a fully charged Spike Shot, there is a 75% chance that a Potato Mine will be automatically placed close to the location of where the enemy was vanquished. This could be really useful if your enemies are close together or as a way to spawn Potato Mines more quickly, but you must land a fully charged shot on an enemy vanquish, or this effect will not trigger, and this effect will not always trigger even with fully charged shots, so these should be taken into consideration. Due to these Potato Mines randomly being placed after they are vanquished, enemies are less likely to notice them and you will more likely get a vanquish this way.

Garlic Drone

Spotlight (2 upgrade points): Dealing damage to an enemy with your Needle Shot, which is the main attack of your Garlic Drone ability, will reveal that enemy to you and all of your allies, which can allow you and your allies to identify where your enemies, and it reveals their health as well, which is useful for identifying enemies that are at low health and vanquishing them. You can make use of this by attacking multiple enemies around the place at least once each, as you can track where your enemies are and react accordingly. You can fly towards your enemies without your enemies knowing and then attack to get the most out of this upgrade.

Sustenance (4 upgrade points): Vanquishing an enemy with your Garlic Drone will restore some of your fuel, which will allow you to use your Garlic Drone for longer before it expires, or basically for infinite time until it gets vanquished if you can vanquish enemies frequently. You can use your Needle Shot main attack to vanquish enemies at low health or enemies with a lack of range so they are unable to counterattack you. Your Big Bulb Barrage could be used against groups of enemies to deal lots of damage or to vanquish multiple enemies, which can give you lots of fuel back. This is great if you can keep your Garlic Drone alive for a while, you can continue to earn vanquishes, or if you want to use it often. 

Petal Propeller

Alacrity (2 upgrade points): When you have used your Petal Propeller, you instantly gain a fully charged attack for your Spike Shot. You can use your Petal Propeller to move around and avoid attacks, and then have a fully charged Spike Shot ready to go without needing to charge up and moving around really slowly. You can cancel your Petal Propeller and still gain the fully charged attack ready if you want to launch your fully charged attack more quickly. This gives you an additional way to get use out of your Petal Propeller, and a quick way to charge up an attack for when you see a good opportunity against an enemy and want to attack quickly.

Bon Voyage (3 upgrade points): Activating your Petal Propeller drops an additional Potato Mine at the location that you activated it, basically allowing you to have extra Potato Mines active at once, however Potato Mines spawned with this upgrade only last up to 30 seconds before disappearing, unlike regular Potato Mines. You can use this ability often, so you can actually have a couple of additional Potato Mines out this way if you use this ability frequently. You are able to cancel the ability after activating and you will still drop the Potato Mine. Just remember that you should place them in useful areas, as they disappear on their own after a while.

So these are the upgrades for Cactus! There are plenty of upgrades available that allow you to improve the capability of your sniper primary weapons or to place additional Potato Mines at a more frequent rate. Your Petal Propeller is not that useful of an ability, although the upgrades allow it to gain additional uses, which you can use to your advantage and to surprise your enemies, as they will not know you have these upgrades.