Spark Run!

[Daniel Cho]

Rovio you b*t** don’t think you can ***k with me you little b*sdta**

[Anonymous]

@daniel-cho

whoa! Them’s fightin’ words!

(I really want to see what’s in that picture now, but it’s not loading for me.)

[Asen_77]

@ramonpontes I have also promoted Nemesis Prime as my 5-th bot with 140%, so now I use him as second in my Spark Run. Bad news is that we can’t change them true the run, only when previous is killed. I could say Nemesis Prime is dealing great with events too. Only on the WMT’s day, flying and ballon pigs and missle day I used my other bots. For the blocks day all type Nemesis Prime is very good.

[Anonymous]

I should add that Nemesis is greatly improved with his acid rounds accessory. He becomes a lot better at block destruction. When stone blocks hit the ground, they almost always are destroyed, and they often get destroyed while still in the air, before they even have a chance to come all the way back down. Without the acid accessory, a lot more stone blocks need a second shot, which you don’t always get the chance to fire.

[Daniel Cho]

@poptimus Oh yeah, my last bot died barely reaching the astrotrain.

[Daniel Cho]

Are you kidding? Barely died again. Rovio you little ************

[MillForce2k]

I think the difficulty has gone up. I’ve been at L160 for a couple weeks now and and was able to make it through with two bots, and occasionally one bot. Lately, I’ve needed a third bot and almost my fourth. In particular, I noticed more sharktihog groups and weapon pigs with lots of crossfire making it hard to dodge. It does appear, though, that the available points have gone up. My third bot is GSGrimlock and he cannot kill a pig sitting on the ground. Ratchet, my fourth bot, isn’t any better. Will have to try Wheeljack tomorrow. Ultimate Megatron and Dead End currently make it 2-3 segments.

[Anonymous]

@millforce2k

how come you’re not using Blaster and/or Nemesis Prime? Blaster in particular is perfectly suited for the Spark Run.

[MillForce2k]

@poptimus NP is only promoted to 100% and Blaster isn’t promoted at all. I promoted Wheeljack to 140% in the last event.

[Anonymous]

@millforce2k

Oh! Well that’s a pretty good reason! Lol

[datguygamer]

@poptimus Do you still play Epic? What’s going on in that forum nowadays?

[Anonymous]

@datguygamer

i do still play, and I follow the current arena thread, but otherwise haven’t been paying attention to the forum lately.

[datguygamer]

@poptimus So the forum is basically dead huh? Sad really. So many of us used to hang out there. Good times.

[Anonymous]

@datguygamer

yeah, and in my estimation it was when they wiped your game that it really started to fall apart

[datguygamer]

@poptimus They took out one card and the rest fell as well. Sad really.

[ramonpontes]

@millforce2k

I agree about the increased difficulty, and also the amount of targets. I’m always using three bots to reach the astrotrain. Sometimes the last bot have to finish the run.

I don’t mind reaching the astrotrain anymore, at least for now, since it does not unlock new levels. I focus more on acquiring points, even if I have to sacrifice some HP from the bot.

About the grounded pigs, a few bots are able to destroy them. My EGL can kill one or two, but I cannot focus fire only on them, because there are always more enemies shooting at you on the screen. That’s why I wanted to know about Nemesis Prime. I will probably try to promote him after a while to test on the run.

[Optimus_Pig]

I find spark runs to be highly variable.

Some days it takes me all four TFs to make it through.

Other days, I can make it through with two (for example yesterday I got UM through 4.9 segments and only needed my second TF right at the end).

My main issue is not being able to accumulate enough points to get 80% of the available sparks.

I’m hitting all of the “high priority” targets (pigs and gold).

[Anonymous]

@optimuspig

Are you at level 160 of the Spark Run yet? If so, the obvious advice is not to worry about finishing it, and focus more on destroying all targets (not just the high-value targets).

UM with Flail should be able to accomplish that for whatever period of time you use him before he’s killed. (With the exceptions of some WMTs; I usually don’t try to destroy those when I’m using him. Even though he’s capable of destroying them, it’s usually at the expense of too much of his health, and/or at the expense of too many other potential targets.)

Which other bots are you using? I know EWB was one of them for a while, but not anymore, right?

For what it’s worth, I’m using Blaster (L16), Nemesis (L17), UM (L17), and Deadend (L15), and I’m getting the full 560% bonus. I haven’t gotten less than 4/5 sparks in a loooong time. I’m destroying all targets except some WMTs (I kill them with Blaster and Deadend, but not with Nemesis or UM).

Regardless of anything else, I’d strongly recommend promoting Blaster if you haven’t already, even at the expense of whatever bonus squad is going on in current live events. In the long run, winning tokens to overpower the TF-du-jour isn’t nearly as valuable as what Blaster can do for you in the Spark Run (and in live events as well, for that matter).

[Optimus_Pig]

@poptimus

I’m only at L123.  I stopped doing Spark Runs for a while, which is why I’m lagging behind the rest of you guys.

So completing the Spark Run is still a priority for me.

My current lineup is UM-EGL-EWB-GSG.  All are promoted to +140%

I also have Dead End, but he’s only at +105% which is why I dropped him from the lineup.

My decision to promote has as much to do with what sort of bonuses will be useful in the Special Events as it does my performance in the Spark Run.  For example my decision to promote EWB to +140% has paid off in two events (the E. Shockwave event and now the E. Nautica event).

I’d say that at present I have a 50/50 chance of earning 80% of the sparks from a Spark Run.

[Optimus_Pig]

If I’d thought harder about it, I would have probably gone with Soundwave instead of EGL as one of my first three promoted TFs when this whole Sparks things started up.  I don’t remember if Blaster was already available at that point, or if he was released later on?

[Optimus_Pig]

Opinion: UM with Fez (+16% Fire Rate and +20% Defense) or with Armada (+25% Gravity Force)?

Already equipped with Flail and Medallion.

[Anonymous]

@optimuspig

It sounds like you’re on the right track, to me. On my way up to level 160, there were several periods of time where I wasn’t getting 80% of the total sparks (and I don’t recall EVER getting 100%; my high score at level 160 is around 277,000, IIRC).

Once you get up to level 160, you can “relax” a bit and focus more on targets than on finishing. I don’t think missing out on 100 or so sparks on a daily basis is going to make or break you anyway, ya know? At that rate, it would take almost a month for you to miss out on a single 5% promotion.

Personally, I was promoting the live event bonus bots when promotions were first introduced, but I switched to promoting my best Spark Run bots pretty quickly, and I’ve simply been mostly using those same bots in the live events. If an event allows a single bot, I’m generally using Ratchet (because he’s good against both Boss Pig and Unicron, in addition to generally being able to destroy all targets), and settling for the 140% bonus. If two bots are allowed, it’s Blaster and Ratchet (280%) for me. That’s generally been good enough for me to get enough tokens to win whatever new TF is being offered, or to overpower a single bot if there’s not a new one.

I should add that I DO spend gems on a daily basis. How many I spend depends on how close I am to certain token thresholds as I approach the end of the day, and also depends on whether or not I can snipe a better slot on the leaderboard for that day. I would say I almost always spend the 10 and 20 gems for 4 or 8 additional runs, and it’s 50/50 whether I spend another 40. It’s rare, but I’ve spent 60, 80, 100, even multiple 100s, when I’ve been in range of the 500 token and 750 token thresholds and/or 1st place.

My gem supply has remained between 3000 and 4000 for several months now. I do not buy gems with real money; they all come from the three mission nodes, the random chests that appear on the map, and from steel crates. I’d guess that I’m getting around 150 per day that way. (I haven’t been able to give or receive “thank you” gems/coins from facebook friends for a while.)

Finally, now that I have Blaster fully promoted (it just happened last week), I AM going to start saving up spark to promote live event bonus bots when appropriate. If I can spend enough sparks to make my second bot give me more than 140%, and if the prizes available in that event are worth it to me, then I’ll do it.

[Anonymous]

@optimuspig

I’m pretty sure Blaster came out after sparks, because I wasted some sparks on Soundwave before realizing that I should dave them for Blaster as far as the Instruments of Destruction squad is concerned. (I could be wrong though, because maybe I didn’t get Blaster when he was first available?)

As for UM, I’ve pretty much only ever used him with Armada; I haven’t really tried Fez. But, I think Fez may actually be a bit of a detriment? This is something I’m not sure about, but I *think* there’s a distinction made between “fire rate” and “weapon cooldown” (a la Galvatron’s Ace of Spades and Vortex accessories), which would mean that the Fez would only decrease the (already pretty small) amount of time between his two shots, but would NOT decrease the (comparatively longer) amount of time between sets of two shots (the “cooldown” period). Can anyone confirm?

[Daniel Cho]

What in the actual ****. I used bumblebee because it was boosted

[JestaCat]

I have found that suggested “boosted” doesn’t often mean best. Sometimes it’s been good, but usually I’m better with my own boosted selections.

I haven’t quite started ignoring the suggested one but I’m very close to it after the last few failed only a few seconds in play.