Energy Sphere

Energy Sphere
An energy sphere that will instantly turn the enemy into a zombie on impact.
Main Stats
Health 120 Melee Damage 10
Special Attacks	Insta-kills human units
Crit. Chance	0%
Speed	5
Rage Drop	2
Behavior Stats
Agility	100
Aggression	100
Detection Range	80
Morale Stats
Charisma	-48
Charisma Radius	50
Resistances
Fire	100%

Energy Sphere (ES) is a gooey, floating blue sphere that constantly glows.

Overview

Energy Sphere is a special enemy that is unable to conventionally attack units. Instead, whenever ES detects a unit close to it, it speeds up and charges into them. Upon contact, Energy Sphere destroys itself and then transforms its target into an Offal. This zombie will have the same level as the unit it transformed from.

Energy Sphere can only charge into humans. It won't target Support Items, but it can charge into the bus, dealing it some melee damage. ES' transformation overrides all perks and team powers related to damage dodging and on-death abilities, preventing them from triggering.

Energy Sphere is immune to fire damage.

Strategy

ES is one of the most dangerous enemies throughout the entire endgame as it's able to ruin any kind of progress simply by targeting important frontline units. As it instantly targets any human unit that comes close to it, it's essentially impossible for melee units to fight against. Ranged units are the only sure way of killing it. Units with the high rate of fire perk are recommended the most but shotgunners can also work as well. Explosions from Red Barrel can heavily damage ES, although being a fire-immune enemy means it will not receive any afterburn damage. However, it does make it an easier target for ranged units or an Empty Barrel to follow-up on.

One particularly problematic way ES can break down a defense or halt an offense is by grouping together and chaining targets. Should two or more ESs group up, what could happen is each ES targeting the same unit, but after the first ES kills the target, the next closest target gets taken out by the second ES, and so on and so forth. Since ES rapidly speeds up in the presence of a unit, it can make it impossible for a unit to fight back effectively once a group of ES closes the gap. It is important to target groups of ESs ahead of time. When dealing with more than one Egg, there could be times where it is difficult to not trigger all of them at once, leading to a ES chain that quickly takes out multiple units.

If ES manages to get close enough to ranged units, it's advised to send out a fast, cheap melee unit as a sacrifice since ranged units generally take much longer to prepare and are usually very important to have enough of in later stages. Mechanic may sometimes be able to strike ES first with his charge attack if he runs into it at the right moment or angle, but using him for that purpose is a gamble that shouldn't ever be relied on. Using a Turret is extremely effective since ES is fairly slow and unable to attack non-human entities, making it likely to absorb significant amounts of damage and disintegrate before it ever reaches a target. Nitrogen can serve fairly effectively against ES due to the freeze stun actually being able to prevent it from locking onto units. Thanks to its lengthy slowdown effect, it can give most melee units time to approach and kill it themselves. However, the risk associated with its freeze activation and its own lengthy cooldown makes it a less than ideal choice in most cases.

It is important to keep proper team composition in mind as ES can counter or ignore certain team effects and disrupt certain unit functions, leading to a waste of courage and a failed mission. Having proper counters against ES and changing out some item sets for certain units could make their presence less frustrating to fight against.

ES can spawn from Egg when it is damaged. In missions where Eggs are fought, ES will be a constant threat even when the mission itself does not normally send them out in the battlefield.

Trivia

• Despite its ability to instantly destroy human units, Energy Sphere still displays a damage number when attacking.
• Energy Sphere, like most other common enemies, reuses the same hurt animations, which would then explain why it produces blood splats when hit, but still disintegrates into a puddle of plasma when destroyed.

Gallery

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  Journal entry.