Arkyid

Arkyid is a tier-4 ground combat unit that acts as a durable frontline brawler with powerful self-healing and area threat. It fires multiple pairs of sapping lasers that apply the Sapped status to targets, healing the Arkyid for a large portion of damage dealt and allowing it to sustain prolonged engagements. The unit can step over most terrain and deals additional area damage from its legs, making it effective at clearing clusters of weaker units and surviving concentrated fire. Its role in play is to absorb and negate enemy forces while dishing out sustained, life-stealing damage rather than relying on pure mobility.

Arkyid mounts four pairs of sapping laser weapons plus a heavy artillery-style shell. The sapping lasers come in three firing-speed pairs (high, medium, low); each sapping beam deals 40 damage per hit, pierces like laser beams, applies Sapped for about 3 seconds, has slight negative knockback, heals the Arkyid for 85% of damage dealt, and reach roughly 6.87 tiles. The artillery pair fires slower shells that deal 65 area damage with about 8.7 tiles blast radius, produce three lightning strikes (each 12 damage, 5-tile lightning length) and apply Sapped for about 10 seconds; these shells travel over blocks and have an effective range of 17.5 tiles (maximum reach with lightning ~ 22.5 tiles). The Arkyid’s legs also inflict contact area damage of 32 across roughly 3.7 tiles.

Because Arkyid repairs itself through lifesteal from sapped targets, consistent low DPS defenses (for example, low-damage rapid turrets) are ineffective on their own. High-burst damage combined with status effects such as cryofluid freezing or blast compound ammo is required to kill an Arkyid quickly. Tsunami walls loaded with water and cryofluid can slow and stall Arkyids, letting other turrets finish them. Bullet-absorbing structures like Segment blocks and Force Projectors are effective against its artillery shells and lightning, since those projectiles bypass standard walls and can knock out supply and defenses. If an Arkyid breaches the front line without backup, it quickly becomes a severe threat due to its sustain.

Against other units, Arkyids are exceptional at killing fragile attackers and guardians because Sapped both reduces enemy maximum health and provides the Arkyid with lifesteal. It is less advantageous compared with more mobile attackers of its tier (for example, Vela and Quad), which can bypass ground defenses and strike cores faster; however, Arkyids excel in direct confrontations and in neutralizing air targets that other sappers (like Toxopid) cannot reliably affect. Units that can reliably beat an Arkyid one-on-one include high-burst or specially resistant units such as Sei, Toxopid, Omura, and Navanax.

Arkyid has undergone several balance and behavior changes since its addition: size and range adjustments, speed refinements (expressed in tiles/second), increases to sapping laser damage and firing rates, the addition of drown-time modifiers so it can be affected by drowning, and removal of its build capability and command limit. Its name derives from the spider genus Arkys (triangular spiders), and its body sprite is reused from the Scepter.