Fritia - Sparkdrive
Fritia - Sparkdrive
6-shooter warp cannons, courtesy of Dr Strangelove.
6-shooter warp cannons, courtesy of Dr Strangelove.
Released in:
Version 3.6 - Winds of Warmth
Note that v3.6 also introduces Longyan - Divine Fox.
Each have their own article.
This article is about how Sparkdrive affects the games meta. If you only want details on Sparkdrive herself - how to play and build her, then view her article here.
Winds of Warmth released with Longyan - Divine Fox as its new operative, who dealt Thermal Ballistic damage, and who also buffed the damage of any Aptitude effects that she was affected by.
This meant that Longyan's best support was Tess - Phantasia, and whilst it was nice for an operative to not be best buddies with Vidya - Celestial Swan for once, the only other operative who gives an Aptitude effect is Fritia - Little Sunshine, who is a 4* operative and who doesn't really compare or compete with the 5* supports.
As such, it seemed obvious that Fritia - Sparkdrive would be an Aptitude-based support operative, and given the name, she would presumably be an Electric-damage-based operative, although presuming an operative would be Electric-damage based upon their name was an assumption that Haru - Raikou proved wrong before, so Fritia's new exosuit wasn't guaranteed to be Electric, although given that Little Sunshine was Thermal Aptitude and Phantasia was Frost Aptitude, Sparkdrive being Electric Aptitude would make a lot of sense, doubly so since it would also mean that Longyan being supported by Phantasia and Sparkdrive would mean she'd be dealing Thermal, Frost, and Electric damage, which just sounds correct.
Sparkdrive being an Electric Aptitude would have been good, as it would give Longyan two obviously BiS supports - Fritia - Sparksdrive and Tess - Phantasia, whilst still allowing Longyan to be supported by other strong ballistic or general supports should either of those not be present, such as Yao - Nightglow or Marian - Aquila.
Again, not having to be by Vidya's side all the time made Longyan pretty interesting as far as supports went, and whilst Longyan's proclivity for Aptitude effect did limit her support pool somewhat, she was still a breath of fresh air... well, at least normal air, as Tess has been an amazing support for basically all ballistic operatives since she was introduced, but again, Vidya not being the best support is always a refreshing change.
Fritia - Sparkdrive does... absolutely none of that though.
She is a main dps, not a support.
She is Electric though, so I guess I got that bit right.
Much like every other Auctus Drive operative before her, Sparkdrive is a main dps, and like all main dps operatives, she is basically useless as a support.
Sparkdrive's support skill deals both Thermal and Electric damage for... some reason.
I am sure there is a reason.
I don't know what it is, but I am sure there is a reason.
It's cool, and different, but since we'll never use it, it doesn't really make a difference what type of damage her Support Skill deals, so it's an odd change. I don't mind, but it is odd.
Whilst you don't really want to actually use Sparkdrive as a support, her Signature Singularity logistics set does give +10% DMG and healing for off-field operatives when it's at its max of 6 stacks.
Since the stacks only last 5s and Sparkdrive can't build stacks when off-field though, this means she can't use this buff to buff the damage of the other support, which seems like a missed opportunity, as having Sparkdrive buff the damage of other support operatives like for example Tess - Phantasia would actually be an interesting mechanic and might give Sparkdrive some actual niche use.
Since there also ren't any support operatives that you'd actually want to use with Sparkdrive who deal their own damage, this doesn't really help her or her teammates though.
Marian - Riptide is helped by this, but it's only a 10% damage buff, and most of your damage comes from Sparkdrive anyway, so the buff is not very useful.
Firstly: Sparkdrive is a purely Skill damage dps - she deals no ballistic or Aux unit damage.
When used as a dps, literally all of the damage that Sparkdrive deals counts as Electric Standard Skill damage.
The only exception to this is her actually shooting her gun, but since she's a skill dps you'll hopefully never do that.
So, how to actually use Sparkdrive?
Tap her Standard or Ultimate skill to deal single-target damage or create an AoE field, respectively.
After using her Standard or Ultimate skill twice in a row, she can click to use a more-powerful AoE/AoE skill, respectively, constantly dealing damage over its few second duration.
Yes, the single-target attack's more powerful version does deal AoE damage. It's AoE is vastly smaller than her actual AoE ability, but it is still an AoE.
She can also use one of each, the upgraded version of which does a beam attack that can pierce to hit two targets.
Whilst she does need to click to use this more powerful version, it isn't a shot and won't proc ballistic or shot buffs/effects, and buffs that proc on shots won't work.
Doing this more powerful skill will also put a copy of that skill into the cylinder in the centre of the screen.
When the cylinder is full (of 6 shots) Sparkdrive can hold her ult to equip her giant cannon, and then hold down the trigger to fire off the upgraded skills in the cylinder.
This also counts as Standard Skill shots - whilst she, again, needs to click to use it, they're not ballistic damage or ballistic shots.
Again: Everything Sparkdrive does counts as Standard Skill Damage - nothing Sparkdrive can do counts as Ultimate Skill Damage or Ultimate Skill Use.
That's it. Relatively simple to explain, and her rotation is pretty simple too:
Use her Standard/Ultimate Skill
Use her Standard/Ultimate Skill again
Click to use the more powerful version and add a copy to the Ultimate's cylinder
Once the Ultimate's cylinder is full (of 6 shots), hold her ult to equip her cannon and then hold down the trigger until empty.
Repeat.
This is both relatively fast-paced but also pretty easy once you get used to it.
Note that with her new 5* weapon, she now gains an extra Spark after every 3rd shot out of her ult cannon.
This means that going into her ult with 3, 4, 5, or 6 shots will allow you to fire a total of 4, 5, 7, and 8 shots, respectively.
This means that the dps increase from 4 to 5 Sparks is much larger than going from 3->4 or 5->6.
6 is still the ideal amount, but 5 isn't that much worse than 6.
Sparkdrive has three distinct attack types:
Her Standard+Ult beam, which is basically a single-target attack.
It does have pierce, but that's just so it can hit the intended target even if another enemy bodyblocks it.
Her Standard Skill orbs, which deal AoE in a small area
Her Ultimate AoEs, which deal AoE over a large area.
This seems like it should give her the choice of how she deals with enemies - the beam for bosses, the orbs for tight groups, and the ult AoEs for more spread out groups.
In practice the damage of the beam is actually pretty similar to that of the Ult AoEs, as her Auctus Drive effect for her Ult AoEs is really strong, so I have found that there's little reason to do anything other than spam the AoEs, and her Standard Skill orbs deal less dps than either her beams or her AoEs, so there's little reason to fill up her cylinder with them.
Hitting an enemy with an orb does start the 4s Damage Taken debuff from her A2, so putting one at the start of the cylinder is always worth considering, but beyond that there's little reason to consider using them.
Just spam her AoE ability and you'll be perfectly fine.
You can spam her beam against bosses for potentially more damage, but it won't add that much more damage.
There's little reason to ever use her Standard Skill orbs.
Against Invulnerable enemies
You might have noticed that nothing in her damage rotation seems like it is actually dependent on Sparkdrive actually landing hits against the enemy, and that's true - she can build up max Sparks in her cylinder even with no enemy to hit at all.
This means that she can perform better against enemies with invuln phases, as she can continue to set up her AoEDoT fields and build Sparks whilst the boss is invulnerable.
Mobile enemies, her Standard Skill ability, and her beam ability
She can potentially perform poorly against highly mobile or airborne enemies, as the projectiles from her Standard Skill are pretty slow, and thus relatively avoidable, although many operatives perform poorly against such enemies, so Sparkdrive isn't alone in that regard. It's a shame she isn't better against mobile/airborne enemies, but that's something of a common weakness, but I think also a relatively minor one due to it being somewhat niche.
Her Standard Skill shots do have a decent homing effect though, so she's often still ok against mobile targets. Not great, but usually ok.
Her Standard+Ultimate attack being essentially a hitscan beam seems like it should be good against mobile enemies, but having to actually aim it relatively precisely does mean that it's not necessarily that easy to use against mobile enemies.
Many mobile enemies spawn in groups, which the single beam isn't that good against, and mobile bosses enemies need Sparkdrive to actually aim to land the hit.
Similarly, if you want to use her beam then you'll probably spend a lot of time in combat staring at the cylinder in order to make sure you get the combo correct.
In addition, at least for me on PC, actually using her Standard Skill plus her Ultimate Skill back-to-back is not nearly as easy as her other combos, as I play on keyboard, and with one hand on the mouse and my thumb on the spacebar [area] I only have four fingers available for the keys, and having to hover two of them over Q and E can mean that having to move diagonally or quickly change my movement direction can be much more tedious that I feel it needs to be.
Given that Sparkdrive doesn't actually ever use her gun, I would have preferred it if she had a dedicated key so she could directly access her beam ability without having to chain her Standard and her Ultimate skill together. For example by using her ADS key to use the beam directly.
In practice you can just use her Ult AoE Sparks, but given that she has more single-target-focussed abilities, her AoE feels like it shouldn't be optimal against single targets.
Mobility and dodging.
Also yes, Fritia does ride the giant void cannon whilst she fires it, so evidently during the Adjutant's two-month long absence Fritia clearly joined Vidya for a movie night and watched Dr. Strangelove, although Fritia does side-ride the cannon, not straddle it. Because, y'know, Fritia has some class.
There's probably something to be said about a game being taken down for months to censor itself and then returning with a girl who rides a giant "cannon" as it shakes all over the place, but I can't think of a good joke about it, so just pretend I am that witty and wrote something funny here.
Regardless, Fritia does ride the cannon as it fires, which is good because the cannon can move at a normal speed, meaning that Fritia has normal mobility whilst the cannon fires.
This is extremely useful, because much like most recent operative before her, Fritia's in-combat mobility is dreadful.
Earlier this patch we saw Longyan - Divine Fox, who had the mobility of an inebriated sloth that's high on dental anaesthetic, and whilst Sparkdrive is much better than that, she's still not that good.
Whilst she can get on her cannon without any delay or having to stop, she does have to stop each time she uses her Standard/Ultimate Skill, as well as having to stop to get off the cannon, which means that she stops a lot.
In terms of mobility she feels similar to Bubu - The Geomancer (oh, you thought we'd be able to get an article on the new operative without me referencing Bubu? You fool) or Mia - Starchaser, where you'll have what would otherwise be decent movement that is constantly interrupted by having to stop to deal damage.
Overall, this gives Sparkdrive enough mobility to be able to kite an ok amount of enemy attacks, but her mobility is still pretty weak overall, and there will probably be many fights where she will need to explicitly dodge to avoid AoE effects and projectile attacks - or just take the hit.
It's also worth noting that Sparkdrive's ult cannon doesn't time out, and she will ride it indefinitely until she has either fired all of its shots or she is swapped off the field.
This means that she can just ride the cannon between groups of enemies, which is neat.
Her ult cannon moves at the same speed as her regular walking speed, which is slower than her running speed (running is around 70% faster-ish)
This means that whilst you can ride the cannon between groups, it's a pretty slow way to get around, which might be annoying in some content, notably Co-Op.
I'd have really liked if Sparkdrive's cannon moved at her running speed, rather than her walking speed.
Sparkdrive does have to wait for her standard/ult cast to finish before she can dodge, which makes her dodge extremely unreliable.
She also cannot dodge while riding her ult cannon. Like... at all.
I feel her cannon could've had some thrusters or something to give her a quick burst of movement akin to a dodge, thus allowing you to dodge whilst riding it.
Her in-combat movement speed on the cannon isn't bad, but not being able to dodge whilst on it is a massive downside to it.
One of the Neural Sim bosses released during Sparkdrive's release event is Aigir, against whom Sparkdrive performs poorly - she often just doesn't have enough time to finish her cast and then be able to dodge before she takes a hit from the boss. Her inability to dodge on command is a huge limitation for Sparkdrive, and against Aigir it really shows.
Sparkdrive can survive the fight and do well if she gets a good run, but chance are she'll die quite a few times on the way to that good run.
The boss the following week is Apex Genesis, against whom Sparkdrive has a similar problem - her mobility just isn't quite good enough to avoid the attacks normally.
Skill timeouts
Sparkdrive also has to cast her Standard/Ultimate skills rather quickly, or else it will time out and you'll have to start chaining the Spark again.
This makes it harder for Sparkdrive to find the time to dodge enemy attacks, as she ideally wants to finish her chain first, so she doesn't waste the previous skill cast[s].
Against enemies that can interrupt her often, this can result in her not gaining a lot of Sparks.
Having her have a [much longer] window of several seconds to click to add the Spark to the cylinder would be appreciated.
If you played the Outfit Trial for Sparkdrive's new outfit, you might have seen that it is currently broken, with Sparkdrive not being usable in the trial, and appearing instead is the operative from whichever trial you most recently completed.
An interesting oversight on the part of the devs, and I am wondering about how you'd even program in such an error to begin with, since as far as I am aware the most recently completed Operative Trial is something that isn't used for anything, and I would assume it isn't actually explicitly stored anywhere.
Very interesting!
Edit: This has since been fixed - Sparkdrive's Outfit Trial now works properly.
Sparkdrive's 5* weapon is Magnetic Flow, which does roughly what you'd expect a new 5* weapon to do.
It boosts damage (in this case Electrical Damage, by 18-30%)
It interacts with one of her unique mechanics (in this case, giving her a copy of every 3rd Spark fired with her ult cannon).
It provides a short-duration but functionally permanent buff (in this case to Standard Skill Damage)
It increases the damage the enemy takes to Sparkdrive's damage by 20%.
Magnetic Flow doesn't really get a buff to its effects when upgraded to T2.
At T1 it has +80% Standard Skill Damage and 20% more Skill DMG taken, and upgrading it to T2 doesn't increase either of those stats.
Specifically, increasing it from T1 to T2 only increases the Electrical Damage boost from 18% to 30%. Nothing else.
This means that the actual difference between Magnetic Flow at T1 and T2 is extremely tiny, to the point that, to be honest, it's barely worth upgrading it.
Sparkdrive's 5* weapon isn't really usable by anybody else, as all of its buffs are only usable by her, and the only other operatives who use an Electric Pistol are:
Vidya - Agave, who isn't that strong, and much prefers the extra S-Energy cap from her signature 4* weapon over Sparkdrive's 5* weapon anyway,
and
Enya - Exuvia, who also prefers her 4* weapon to Sparkdrive's 5*
So again - you may as well upgrade Sparkdrive's weapon to T2 as there's no other real use for it, but as of the time of writing this, the actual benefit of doing so is tiny.
Sparkdrive did also have the issue that her Logistics set gave her buffs that lasted 5 seconds, with the duration on existing buffs resetting whenever she gained a new Spark.
When she was released, her 5* weapon copoied the last Spark fired after her ult cannon was empty, meaning she only had to get 5 Sparks to use it again, which would mean that she didn't gain any during her ult, and hence her Logistics buffs would expire during her ult, which meant the damage from her [proper] Standard/Ult Skill didn't get much use out of them as she'd build up the buff as she generated Sparks, then had max buff during her ult, then lost the buff after her ult ended.
Her 5* weapon was thus changed shortly after her release to give her a copy of her most recently fired Spark after firing 3 Sparks from her ult, which allows her to maintain her Logistics buffs during her ult, making them effectively permanent.
Since this was fixed before her stat-locked Logistics set was actually released, this wasn't something that would have affected most players very much, if at all.
This patch did have a lot of cool new features and QoL improvements to the game, as I mentioned in my article on Longyan earlier this patch, so it is interesting that Fritia has two pretty glaringly obvious issues as well as one subtle issue as well.
Since every player gets Sparkdrive for free just from logging in, can get a T2 weapon for free, you can still preview Sparkdrive's premium outfit, and her Logistics set hadn't released yet, in practice they're not really that much of an issue, although I am very surprised that such an issue happened to the newest operatives premium outfit, as it's pretty well known that most of the money that gacha games make in the West comes from premium outfit sales, so they're usually one of the most rigorously bug-tested things.
Sparkdrive fares ok for casual/non-endgame content.
She has quite a lot of AoE in her kit (and as above, spamming her AoE ability is probably going to be the default way of playing her), she has good range, and has a good base DEF of 980 that leads to her having above-average overall DEF, but has weak in-combat mobility.
For casual content Sparkdrive is serviceable and is perfectly usable, and whilst she's nothing special, she's certainly more fun than her patch-partner Longyan.
I'd be happy to use Sparkdrive for casual content, but there are operatives who will clear the content much faster or with better or more consistent mobility or less risk.
Whether they're as much fun as Sparkdrive is up to you to decide though.
Sparkdrive deals Electric Skill damage.
This means that she competes directly with Chenxing - Jade Arc, who is the games main Electric Skill damage user.
Chenxing has had the metagame in a chokehold since she was introduced, dealing incredibly high damage, but also having the ability to stack arrows into enemies and then ult for extreme damage that allows Chenxing to instakill enemies, and thus bypass the invuln phases of many bosses, giving her the undisputed spot as the games top endgame dps.
Sparkdrive does not compare, but to quote what I said about the previous Auctus Drive operative (which was Mauxir - Lotus):
"To be fair to Mauxir, Rhapsody is one of the games strongest operatives for dps, and as an Auctus Drive operative Mauxir was never going to be at the top, and that was by-design."
and the same is true when comparing Sparkdrive and Jade Arc; Jade Arc is generally the games best dps, and as an Auctus Drive operative Sparkdrive was never going to compete, and that was by-design.
Sparkdrive can also be compared to the games only other non-Chenxing Electric skill DPS; Vidya - Agave, but the comparison is somewhat redundant due to just how massively both of them are outclassed by Jade Arc. Agave also has potential use as the games best Parts Breaker, which is a niche use these days, sure, but she is the best at it regardless.
Will I ever use Sparkdrive in endgame content?
I do like to try Neural Sim/SupBat bosses with a variety of operatives, just to have more challenging gameplay to play, so I will probably use her, yes.
Will she ever get my best scores in endgame content?
No - I have a very strong Jade Arc, so Sparkdrive will never even come close to being my best operative or getting my best scores.
Is Sparkdrive fun?
I think so, yes.
For experienced players like me, Sparkdrive is a new toy to play with - what matters the most is whether she is fun, and I think that she is.
For new players, Sparkdrive is a perfectly competent dps that you can use to clear literally all of the games content without exception.
Again, the primary consideration for an Auctus Drive operative is that they are fun, and I do think that Sparkdrive is pretty fun to play, and her ult does play differently to all other operatives, so I think she's a good operative - She's fun, good looking, and not overpowered.
Good job, Fritos!
It's true that I really was expecting Sparkdrive to be the first Auctus Drive operative to be a support and not a dps, and whilst I know many people thought that was unlikely as all previous Auctus Drive operatives have been dps'ers, Seasun have been shown to be willing to change things up in the past, so it wouldn't have surprised me.
Sparkdrive not being Longyan's ideal second support means that Fritia does somewhat fall flat as far as the meta is concerned, as she is so out-classed by Jade Arc that Sparkdrive is not really useful for endgame content if you already have Jade Arc.
All previous Auctus Drive operatives have had some form of healing:
Pulse has insane healing, and could give herself strong shielding as well, although that shielding was there to counter her insane self-damage, which was also unique, and Pulse was the first dps operative who could actually heal herself to a strong degree.
Raikou did slowly recover HP by forming closed loops, and had very unusual mobility.
Lotus could heal her Nodes by a huge amount.
Fritia not being able to heal does make her stand out against the other Auctus Drive operatives, but what also makes her stand out is that she doesn't really have anything special going on at all, at least from a mechanical perspective.
In Lotus' article, I said that I really enjoyed playing Lotus and found her really fun, and that's true - I have liked using her and have used her quite a lot since she was released, and Lotus is utterly unique in how she plays.
Pulse' self-damage and self-healing did also make her very unique, as she was (and still is) one of the only operatives that has significant self-healing, with Clarina - Crimson Moon being the only other dps with any notable/significant self-healing.
My article on Raikou was basically an autopsy of failure, as I really disliked her design, but she was still somewhat unique in how she played - the movement, the weird way her ult worked, even that she could heal herself [to a small degree].
I had come to expect that Auctus Drive operatives wouldn't be strong, but would be unusual in their designs, which would make them unique and pretty interesting.
Sparkdrive doesn't really have anything that makes her stand out, which means that, again; I feel she does somewhat fall flat.
I like her, and I think she's really fun, but there's no situation where she really stands out or has any unique capabilities.
Mia - Starchaser works similarly to Fritia - she hops around between bursts of damage, which charges up her ult, which fires 8 shots, and she deals electric damage, with good range, and a great AoE ability, but a stronger single-target ability.
If you don't care about the difference between Ballistic and Skill damage, then Sparkdrive is extremely similar to Starchaser.
Sparkdrive is just... a new operative.
That's not bad in and of itself, but beyond the usual quirks that all new operatives seem to have, and talking about her dps, I am struggling to find much more to say about her.
I can mention that whilst Fritos is still a plank, she does now have actual jiggle physics, which is sure to be extremely divisive among the playerbase.
Also, in case you haven't already; check out the alternative headpiece on her Premium Outfit.
To whichever devs created that: I don't know who you are, but I have infinite respect for you.
Sparkdrive is a perfectly fine operative.
If you're a new player and she's all you have, then she's a perfectly good choice and will see you through literally all the games content just fine.
If you're an experienced player, then she is a fun new toy that is pretty enjoyable to play in both casual and endgame content alike.
As an Auctus Drive operative, Sparkdrive isn't that strong, and dealing Electric Skill damage means she competes with Jade Arc, who is generally the games strongest dps, so for endgame content there's no reason to ever use Sparkdrive outside of fun, which is a perfectly valid reason.
Sparkdrive is a fun, but... shall we say; mediocre, operative, which is fine.
As I've said about many previous operatives - it's good that new operatives aren't overpowered, and don't break things, and I think it's completely ok for an operative to be merely fine, or to not be that strong.
Sparkdrive isn't that exciting, but she delivers all we want from an Auctus Drive operative; she's fun, unique, and isn't overpowered, so I think she's a good operative, and since she doesn't have any major weaknesses about her that degrade the fun of playing her, I think she's a very good Auctus Drive operative.
She won't be the meta for dps, but for you she could be the new meta for having fun.