Spark seems.. useless?

[Holy Athena]

Maybe its just me, but even on normal difficulty he seems really useless. Just got done with a playthrough using him. My hit % was about roughly a solid 30-35% for the whole campaign with him. (This is including towards the end when I'd only shoot if he was a 70% or higher chance) and that didn't alter the RNG rolling low.

I outfitted him to be the guardian, forget what its called, but the left side of the skill tree that's supposed to help him tank shots, and be your front line tank so to speak. His skills are mediocre at best, and his hit chance is so low its a joke tbh.

1 extra armor? eh.. Allies can use you as a full cover? ehh... All of this is pretty meh when you realize Spark can be taken out with ease with 2-3 direct hits. (even fully upgraded late game).

Literally no reason ever to have Spark in your line up. Ever. Any other class can fill that role, and do it far better.

Grenadier, with the heavy launcher upgrade. You now have 2 more ways to shred armor over the fully upgraded Spark. Your soldier has better stats, and they can take cover, and take advantage of the terrain better. That's nto to mention they can also carry items.

Sniper as well, can do more than Spark and be more helpful, again items, get an AP round on your sniper, no worries about armor anymore either, and you rhigh chance to hit + high crit chance if you mod out your weapon will allow you to shred enemies apart far more reliably than Spark.

How about the Specialist, Spark sucks at hacking and it doesn't upgrade well in comparison from my experience. Specialist can heal, carry more items, equip specialized ammo again, upgrade their weapon, and again over all more viable.

Even a Ranger... but you get my point now.

Seems like they wanted Spark to be a "Jack of all Trades, Master of none" But atm, he's "Master of none, ♥♥♥♥♥♥ at everything else".

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Knuckles128:

The inherent problem with the spark is that it's supposed to be the spirtual successor to the shiv unit from the last game. In order to fulfill that role in this game, it needs to be tough and relatively disposable to make up for its inherent lower potential compared to soldier units. For whatever reason, the developers decided that it would be great for it develop like the rest of the soldiers in terms of skills and now it's stuck in a tough place. To make matters worse, it actually takes more time to completely repair a spark unit than it is to wait for a soldier to heal, particuarly with the advanced warfare center, which makes the whole "robot sacrafice" strategy from the first game unviable in this game.

If the spark could use high cover to protect itself better, and/or if it's skills were tied to it being used as a class, as a opposed to an individual unit (ie, class leveling as opposed to individual unit leveling), it could be more useful. Right now, it's just a walking irony. An expensive poor-man's version of the four classes base classes.

Class leveling would have been a brilliant addition to how sparks worked. All sharing their programmed experiences and being able to replicate that experience in semi-disposable bodies.

I also think they should be able to learn both sides of their skill tree (as a psi-op does) since otherwise a good portion of their skills aren't that great but would be OK as additional upgrades.

As it stands the only reason to use a spark is because you happen to get one free, building more is an expensive chore and they overall bring little more to the table than being a wierd hybrid of the other classes that doesn't get really good at any one thing.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by CasualCupcake:

Originally posted by Knuckles128:

The inherent problem with the spark is that it's supposed to be the spirtual successor to the shiv unit from the last game. In order to fulfill that role in this game, it needs to be tough and relatively disposable to make up for its inherent lower potential compared to soldier units.
...

Sparks remind me more of MEC units from XCOM: Enemy Within than SHIVs, but that's just the impression that I got.

They are MEC like only in their appearance. The storyline puts them more in line with what a SHIV was and their fully-robotic nature as opposed to being a cyborg is also more in line with them being a walking-SHIV that just happens have some adaptive AI so that it can talk and learn.

[talemore]

If you see the game like a fantasy game then:

Grenadiers are Druid / Knight, able to use magic in the bottle and throw it on the enemy while still being able to have the highest amount of armor and health.
Psi ops are Wizards, can learn abilities with no need to gain the experience
Rangers are Rouges, focusing stealth and combat
Specialists are Priests, uses skills who improve defence and health.
Sharpshooters are Archers who can shoot from a long distance
Spark, the Jester( Jack of trades) uses skills by two or more classes, never able to master.

[Myshkin]

This is 50%-50% both sides; something tells me it's neither too bad, nor too good.

I see them becoming more useful in future DLCs.

[GramboStorm]

The SPARK is a great defensive unit, capable of absorbing lots of shots. In the mid-game against Advanced Troopers, a Bulwark SPARK with at least Plated Armour will regularly take 1-2 damage from their shots (assuming they hit).

[Molvanîa!]

I enjoy the Spark, mine has 4 armor, a flame-thrower, a bombardment drone thing, and he can break through walls like he's the Kool-Aid man. He doesn't hold up my team by any standards, my sniper is the one who does that, but the team really feels rather empty without him around. I don't know what you mean by "can only take 2-3 hits". Yeah, that's true, but my common soldiers usually are 2 shot by enemies' direct fire anyway. Though I never have built more than 1, that seems stupid to do.

I do share agreement with them never hitting ♥♥♥♥ though. I understand the whole "flank thing", but other soldiers have better chances with their regular guns when shooting at an enemy behind heavy cover than the Spark has at shooting enemies in light cover.

[talemore]

Spark can only take 2-3 hits and this is also during sacrifice who gives you 6 armor. If you can't soak up the damage, Spark will die and it can be questioning if repair do any good if spark dies by soaking up the damage.

The issue is not that spark is destroyed, the issue is that a SHIV can be mass produced with no need to gain experience. SHIV can be used and then destroyed with no need to bother since the only use of a SHIV is to either tank for one turn against enemies who are not fooled by mimic beacons or setup overwatch ambushes and suppress targets.

What SPARK need is PCS modules who allow SPARK to learn with no need to gain experience

The time it takes to gain perks by creating more than one spark could not only been used to train a new soldier, you would be able to create ammo and armor that can be used by everyone.

[theworld]

Originally posted by Stray Inu:

Sparks? useless? Don't know how you guys are playing the game, but I'm at commander difficulty and He is a great tank, survives two shots just fine,

Odds are you won't survive 2 shots from Sectopod.

Originally posted by GramboStorm:

The SPARK is a great defensive unit, capable of absorbing lots of shots.

Literally can't absorb 2 shots from Sectopod.
Lots of shots, hahaha, oh wow....

Very good shredding (gatekeeper killer here),

What kind of joke is this? Gatekeeper has -40% Defense. Spark does not have Scopes or PCS, you can't kill Gatekeepers worth a damn with Spark.

[Farsha]

Originally posted by TheWorld:

Originally posted by Stray Inu:

Sparks? useless? Don't know how you guys are playing the game, but I'm at commander difficulty and He is a great tank, survives two shots just fine,

Odds are you won't survive 2 shots from Sectopod.

Originally posted by GramboStorm:

The SPARK is a great defensive unit, capable of absorbing lots of shots.

Literally can't absorb 2 shots from Sectopod.
Lots of shots, hahaha, oh wow....

Very good shredding (gatekeeper killer here),

What kind of joke is this? Gatekeeper has -40% Defense. Spark does not have Scopes or PCS, you can't kill Gatekeepers worth a damn with Spark.

Nothing is supposed to absorb 2 shots from sectopod. If sectopod fires soldiers gonna die and you are a bad commander. For sectopods you have blues screen rounds, emp granade ,hack, frost granade & mimic beacons... not tanks. That is not a valid argument.
Spark is ok early & mid game. He's not good in late game that is true. But he's usefull till you soldiers get to high ranks. Don't believe he was ever designed to be good in the end game.
That said I think he should be able to get atleast weapon mods to make him bit better.

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by Farsha:

Originally posted by TheWorld:

Odds are you won't survive 2 shots from Sectopod.


Literally can't absorb 2 shots from Sectopod.
Lots of shots, hahaha, oh wow....


What kind of joke is this? Gatekeeper has -40% Defense. Spark does not have Scopes or PCS, you can't kill Gatekeepers worth a damn with Spark.

Nothing is supposed to absorb 2 shots from sectopod. If sectopod fires soldiers gonna die and you are a bad commander. That is not a valid argument.
Spark is ok early & mid game. He's not good in late game that is true. But he's usefull till you soldiers get to high ranks. Don't believe he was ever designed to be good in the end game.

That is not true. look people forget cover. and defense. 15 defense doesn´t cut it with a sectopod that shoots 3 times at aim 50+ that means 3 times 35% shot at lowest difficulty.
Now cover migate that to example 10% shot chances. that sounds a lot beter :P
then 35% shot chance.

So offcourse people compare those two things. a spark takes 2 hit it is dead.
But a soldier in full cover. will easily be able to survive one hit from a sectopod if it´s get lucky.

Now a Spark problem is that it can take 1 shot and it is dead . cause other elements around the sectopod troopers can easily finish it off.

Now offcourse if you play kill them ALL before they retaliate style. then it doesn´t matter if aliens does 100 damage and have 100 aim. infact only thing that matters are Aliens HP .

But since most people including me find bigger numbers of enemies fun.
So 5 -10 enemies on the map. meaning always something survive or if you make a mistake.
you have to fight off 10-15 enemies.

In these kind of games. Spark simply feels useless.

[K. the Land-Surveyor]

Just finished a run on Commander, and overall found the SPARK to be super useful.

I invested almost entirely in Future Combat (Deviating only to pick up Bombard over Repair), which proved to be a huge boost. Bulwark was great, which allowed my squad to maneuver what would normally be really awkward angles without exposing themselves. I think I only used Sacrifice two or three times, but when I did I'm convinced it bailed at least one soldier out from a gruseome death, possibly two.

The rest of the stuff was nice, but not certainly game changing (Though potentially getting 3 shred on 3 targets in a turn felt nice). Never had an issue with survivability, though. Early on, I probably had some close calls, but after June and beyond I don't think it ever dropped below half health, and I ran it out on every mission.

One thing I really enjoyed was being able to fearlessly position for maximum effectiveness on cone-pattern heavy weapons. I don't think I've ever used the flamethrower quite so much.

[theworld]

Originally posted by Farsha:

Nothing is supposed to absorb 2 shots from sectopod.

Says who? In EW tank build MECs were GUARANTEED to survive ANY 2 shots: http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/Absorption_Fields

If sectopod fires soldiers gonna die and you are a bad commander. That is not a valid argument.

Yours is not a valid argument. EW you could Dense smoke + Telekinetic Field + Ghost Armor and stand in the open without cover for 100 Defense and no shot without elevation could touch you.

Spark is ok early & mid game.

Doing Spark mission in Legend early is about the easiest way to fail campaign because of wound timers.

[RainingMetal]

If SPARKs didn't take so long to repair, or if there was an optional way of making them repair faster, they'd see a lot more use from me.

[theworld]

Originally posted by RainingMetal:

If SPARKs didn't take so long to repair, or if there was an optional way of making them repair faster, they'd see a lot more use from me.

There's a Repair skill in left side of the tree, I haven't tried it though.

[marshmallow justice]

Originally posted by TheWorld:

Doing Spark mission in Legend early is about the easiest way to fail campaign because of wound timers.

So run more squads.