Upgrades Discussion: Snapdragon Upgrades!

I welcome you to the upgrade discussion post for Snapdragon!

Unique Upgrades

Excellent Accelerant (2 upgrade points): When you set your enemies on fire, they will be set on fire for 4 seconds, instead of 1.5 seconds. This is a significant improvement and it is already quite easy to deal fire damage, so this upgrade will make the fire effect even more potent. This is great for dealing even more damage to your enemies and it makes it easier for you and your allies to successfully vanquish the enemy after the fire expires.

Coolant (2 upgrade points): When you set your enemies on fire, your overheat for your Flame Blower and Flare Ball is reduced, meaning that successful fire damage will allow you to keep attacking for even longer before you overheat. Because the overheat is shared for both of your main weapons, you can keep attacking with either weapon this way. This is useful if you want to consistently deal damage without really needing to worry about overheating, and this is even better if you attack multiple enemies at once as you can trigger this effect multiple times.

Radiate (2 upgrade points): Your Flare Ball has approximately 25% more splash damage than normal, and it will increase the damage of your Flare Ball attack by up to 10 damage, whether you hit an enemy directly with it or you deal splash damage. This is really useful to have if you like to use your Flare Ball often, or if you struggle to successfully land shots with it. It is a more viable ranged option this way, which you can make use of if engaging in close range is not a good idea. This upgrade will only work with your Flare Ball and not with your Flare Blower. 

Campfire (3 upgrade points): Whenever you get a vanquish on an enemy, you automatically create a fire column at the location where you vanquished the enemy, which lasts for about 5 seconds each. This can be used to benefit yourself and your team by getting a vanquish, or for additional damage which you can put to good use. You can make even better use of this if an enemy is currently located where the fire column would be placed in a really good location, so try to consider situations where an enemy is situated in a position where the fire trail can deal more work.

Unique Ability Upgrades

Swoop Slam

Quake (2 upgrade points): Any enemy that you hit with Swoop Slam get knocked up and away, which means they are more vulnerable to attacks for a short time and to create some distance between you and the enemies, except you should still be able to attack them afterwards without any trouble. This could be used to move the enemies away from your team, confuse them or make them more vulnerable after using this ability.

Incendiary (4 upgrade points): Any enemies that are indirectly hit by your Swoop Slam get set on fire automatically, or in other words if you near miss the enemy, you must land very close to them and still successfully deal damage. This upgrade also gives you a reduced cooldown on Swoop Slam if you successfully vanquish an enemy with it, meaning that directly hitting enemies still benefits the upgrade. This is useful for using Swoop Slam more frequently, or to still benefit from using Swoop Slam if you do not generally manage to hit your enemies directly.

Blue Blazes

Heat Seeking (2 upgrade points): Your Blue Blazes has better homing capabilities, as the Blue Blazes can more easily turn around and can travel further before it disappears. This can be useful to improve your chances of successfully landing a hit with this, as it will pursuit your enemies more relentlessly. It will travel further which means that your enemies are less likely to successfully outrun it as well, so if you wish to make use of the homing, this is a great upgrade to use.

Ventilation (3 upgrade points): Activating your Blue Blazes removes any overheat you currently have with your Flame Blower and Flare Ball, and reduces the cooldown of all of your other abilities as well. This is great as you could activate Blue Blazes as a way to simply remove your overheat of your primary weapons and so that you can use your other abilities more often. Even if you do not use your Blue Blazes much or do not get much use from it, this upgrade is excellent as it helps your other attacks recharge much more quickly, and you can activate it randomly if you want these effects. 

Blazing Trail

Engulf (2 upgrade points): Your Blazing Trail lasts for about 10 seconds now, which is significantly longer than usual. This is going to make it really hard for enemies to escape if they need to leave quickly. This can be used to control areas for longer as well and provide cover. It also means that you do not have to wait as long before you can use the ability again, technically reducing the refresh time because you will have to wait less time before you can use this ability again. Interesting!

Backdraft (3 upgrade points): The Blazing Trail travels much faster when it is launched, giving enemies much less time to react to its activation and possibly surprising them as they may have never seen it coming before either. This is great if you need your ability to be launched quickly or you see a good opportunity to greatly benefit from this ability, and you could get them to back off and make them think twice about approaching, especially if you can launch this quickly before your enemies can decide what to do about it.

That is now all of the upgrades for Snapdragon! These upgrades are useful for maintaining fire, making your abilities more useful, allowing you to attack for longer without taking a break, or to allow you to use your abilities more frequently. No upgrades particularly seem must haves, allowing you as the player to decide what you want to use, rather than feeling like you need to use specific upgrades to make Snapdragon useful, as he performs well even without upgrades, although the upgrades are still great to use and make him even better!