Sparks Guide! (because.... nyah.)

(SweetGenocide) #1

So, i decided to do a Sparks guide because, i didn’t find so many!

Introduction

Sparks is a medic, but not any type of medic, shes a sniper medic. She can snipe teammates across the map and revive them or send out deadly charges of electricity to her enemies, shes haves 80 health, so lookout for the 1 shooting potentials. (Fletchers stickies,Katanas, etc.) but with that health, she comes with a 470 speed ratio, that means shes one of the fastest mercs in the whole game (the other one being Aura.).

Role

Since Sparks is a medic, you need to keep an eye out for your allies health, and also revive them when possibile, always stick behind them, if you’re more experienced, then you can go lone hunting. But i don’t sugest doing that.

Weaponry

Sparks comes from the pool of the pistols (that means her primaries are machine pistols and her secondaries are normal pistols) for the primary slot she has the options of the: Empire -9, MP400 and Tolen MP. I find the Empire - 9 the better since it’s like an Hochfir but with less magazine size and also lower damage. the MP400 is also pretty good, it has the highest damage than the others. The Tolen MP has more damage than the Empire, it’s basicly the MP400 and the Empire mixed together. And for her secondary slot she has the options of the: M9 , Caulden and Sebstalt .7 . All of them are pretty nice, but you’re gonna use them when you need to reload your primary.

General Loadouts and Augments

Sparks haves 1 augment only for her, and that’s Quick Charge (basicly it makes your revive gun charge faster.) the augments you might wanna search are: Get up, Potent Packs and Quick Charge. The best loadouts (in my opinion) are: 383 Companion Agent ; 342 Service Agent ; 241 Service Agent ; 273 Technical Agent ; 181 Technical Agent and the 143 Service Agent.

Abilities

Sparks only has 2 abilities (like every other medic except Phoenix.) :

Revive Gun : Fires high concentrated electric shocks, it firstly has to charge and then release it to fire, a half charged shot does 30 damage to the body, a half charged shot does 60 damage to the head. A fully charged shot does 60 damage to the body, a fully charged shot does 120 damage to the head. Also don’t let it charge so much if not it’s gonna overheat.

Med packs (7 Seconds) : Sparks throws out small med packs that heal anyone who touches them, a picked up health pack gives 30 health, a direct hitted health pack gives 40 health, with potent packs a picked up health pack gives 35 health and a direct hitted one gives 45 health.

Ingame

Sparks’ main weapon isn’t the machine pistol, but it’s the revive gun, try landing as many shots as possible, and in the mean time revive allies, keep the medpacks, don’t waste them on the ground, heal allies that desperatly need health, don’t waste them if they are missing like 20 HP, Sparks’ main job is to revive, not to heal. always try keeping 2 medpacks for yourself, if not you might die. Sparks technically has unlimited health and ammo, try staying in the backlines and try landing as many shots as possibile with the revive gun. In a situation when you’re caught by suprise, don’t wait till you fully charged the Revive gun, just grab your machine pistol and try killing the enemy, then heal up when done.

(So yah this was my guide on how 2 Sparks. I hope it might help <-<;)

(Kudrow) #2

Hello everybody,
Before few days I bought Sparks and here is what I think of her and what you should really know.
Everything what is written in upper post is fine but don’t think that playing Sparks is easy. The main reason is that because you kind of don’t have a proper weapon so you should always stay behind your mates. With that medic you can forget going one on one with other mercs, so you should flank them (if it is possible). Revive rifle (“revifle” :slight_smile: ) has that battery system for ammo which is good. I think that you need to fire 4 shots on full power to drain the battery. Killing with revive rifle is pretty hard since you have to hit for the head in order to get one shot kill. Mostly that happens randomly, I mean you can’t really aim for the head while you and enemy are moving. Secondy, damage and health given on revive depends on how long you hold mouse button to charge it. Also one of the facts that regards damage/health is distance. On longer distances you will deal less damage and you will give less health for reviving. I suggest to peak out from corner to hit enemies with your revive rifle and also to do that on medium range. Also what you need to know is that when you are shooting downed enemy (enemy that is lying on ground) you deal much less damage (I don’t know why - maybe that’s bug), so if you see downed enemy try to meele him or kill with other weapon (small smg or pistol). A lot of times happend to me that I took out revive rifle to revive a mate and pressed a mouse but it didn’t start charging and then I needed to press once more - Dirty Bomb is very fast game and few seconds means a lot. That happens if you take out revive rifle and immediately after press mouse to charge it. If you want to perform quick revive (that will give team mate little HP) than you must know that quick revive with revive rifle is slower than with defibrillators because you have to charge your revive gun for a short period of time. Because of that a lot of times happened to me that I died because I wanted to quick revive a mate. You should always look at minimap for crosses which points to downed mates. Also take a look at time until next respawn because it isn’t worth reviving somebody that is far from you because when you come to them to revive they will already respawn. What you also must look is for mates HP. Since it is hard to hit your mate with small medpack and since he won’t probably see it if it is on ground then you should take out your revive rifle and charge it the the max and wait few seconds for you mate to die and then to revive him because he will have full HP. That method is much faster than going to your mate and trying to hit him with small medpack. This is very useful when you are in cover and when enemies are stronger than your mates. That method is a big dirty, but hey - the game is called Dirty Bomb, so what can you expect :smiley: .

A lot of times I heard that Sparks is like a sniper but that’s not true because of few things:

  1. You don’t have any zoom while iron sighting.
  2. Damage depends on how long you hold and about distance.
  3. Everytime you try one on one against sniper you will lose (if sniper isn’t new player).

Small medpacks are great if your team-mates don’t run away from you like a maniac. A lot of time when I wanted to heal team mate he is constantly moving even that he saw me and that there were no enemies. Sometimes is hard to make a direct hit to give more health to your team mate. Since those small medpacks are really small a lot of times happens that your mates won’t see that immediately after you throw them on floor so either you will have to spend one more medpack or they will go away without refilling health. Small medpack are great because they heal instantly, so they are good for using in battle.

I was mostly talking about cons of Sparks but there are also pros. I wanted to say you those things because I think that are imporntant. To sum up everything here are pros and cons:

Pros:

  1. Very fast merc (fastest with Aura - 470 speed). You are able to go around the whole map and revive a mate.
  2. Reviving mates on distance
  3. Small medpack are great to use for yourself and other mates in battle.
  4. Sometimes you get lucky and one shot your enemy with revive rifle - is god damn feeling when that happens.
  5. Revive rifle is okay for taking down enemy turrets because it can shoot at long range and you have infinite ammo.
  6. Very easy to get XP from badges. You will mostly get those badges: Revive Spree, Revive level 1-3, Miracle Worker and Doctor, Healing 1.
  7. If you have bad team but they are on the same place and dying you can get a lot of XP from reviving.

Cons:

  1. Little HP (80 HP)
  2. Ammo for little SMGs (Empire-9, MP400 or Tolen) burns out very quickly.
  3. She doesn’t have shotgun or other proper SMG.
  4. Revive rifle isn’t that effective for killing because you will miss enemy mostly, so you will have to aim for the torso if you want to hit something.

And on the end, the question is “Is Sparks worth 50000 credits?”. Well I don’t have right answer for that because if you don’t have any merc and you want to buy the first one then I suggest you to buy other merc like for example Nader, or if you want a medic Phoneix. Sparks is my third merc that I bought and I am quite satisfied with her since I like Aura, but playing Sparks isn’t that easy as playing Aura. I bought Sparks because I was seduced by her revive rifle and being able to revive mates on distance. If I would have to rate Sparks as a merc, overall mark would be 7.5/10. So, that was my review on Sparks and please correct me if I made a mistake somewhere.

(SweetGenocide) #3

@Kudrow you’re right, Sparks isn’t easy to play, i’ve seen lots and lots of players that say some crap like: “why did i even buy her when she’s so f*cking weak”. Going lone hunting with Sparks is pretty challenging, i would rather do that if my team has atleast 2 medics (that know how to play their role), also you’re right with the Reviver but i wanted to say it’s like a sniper because of the damage, the reviver or “revifle” does like 30 ; 60 ; 120 damage (depends on how much you charge it), also i don’t wanna be rude, but i dont find Sparks good for healing, i mean, sure, you can use your medpacks on teammates but, in most situations, when i see that i’m only with a teammate, and he/she is about to die, then i just use half of my med packs on them (because i find in most situations atleast having 2 medpacks saved for you then you’ll have more chances of survival).

(Kudrow) #4

I agree - Sparks isn’t that good for healing such is Aura but I does the job for 1 team mate that is almost dead. Everytime I try to go hunting with Sparks it doesn’t finish good for me :slight_smile: So, yea, she is that kind of merc that will stay behind others and support them mostly with reviving so you need to save battery for reviving. Few times happened to me that I run out of battery on revive rifle because I was trying to shoot enemies with it and I had trouble with dealing damage. On the end my teammate was down and I had to wait for battery to charge up but by the time battery was up my teammate was dead. So you always have to pay attention to you battery level. Oh, I almost forgot - here is a video of gameplay with Sparks that I took today. It shows a little bit how she should be played.

Link for video: This will redirect you to youtube.

(SweetGenocide) #5

[quote=“Kudrow;202154”]I agree - Sparks isn’t that good for healing such is Aura but I does the job for 1 team mate that is almost dead. Everytime I try to go hunting with Sparks it doesn’t finish good for me :slight_smile: So, yea, she is that kind of merc that will stay behind others and support them mostly with reviving so you need to save battery for reviving. Few times happened to me that I run out of battery on revive rifle because I was trying to shoot enemies with it and I had trouble with dealing damage. On the end my teammate was down and I had to wait for battery to charge up but by the time battery was up my teammate was dead. So you always have to pay attention to you battery level. Oh, I almost forgot - here is a video of gameplay with Sparks that I took today. It shows a little bit how she should be played.

Link for video: This will redirect you to youtube.[/quote]

If i would’ve been you i would’ve hid behind the rock on the left side and try to do as much damage with the reviver, and revive fallen teammates. (But still thanks for the vid, xD)

(Kudrow) #6

Heh, yea. That’s true. I made a mistake on the end where I went to the delivery point and got killed. I should stay behind that rock as you said. Anyway, in that match we manage to deliver the 1 objective and then time run out :confused:

(Merrynator) #7

I’d like to add 282 to the list of loadout cards.

If you ever hang out anywhere near the frontlines with Sporks (once you get more experienced), the unshakeable augment becomes curious option. If you have full HP, direct nade by a nader doesen’t drop you and you might live to tell a tale.

(Ptiloui) #8

Another thing : to be really efficient with Sparks, you must NOT use “quick ability” key, but instead use “Equip Item X” key. This way, you can keep the revive gun all the time, even if you’re not charging it. You’ll then be able to revive a lot quickier and pick shot enemies easier.

(ASD) #9

how to not do it: