Spore Keeper

10 (weakspot)

## Overview

* Spore Keepers are tall and durable enemies, featured in the The Last Stand DLC, appearing only in the 4 maps from the last region (8. Arc Islands).
* They have a fairly large awareness radius, and are aggressive toward players.
	+ Despite of the Spore Keeper having aggressive behaviour towards the player, the Mind Control Spire would only stun this lume, instead of making it attack other lumes.
* Their attack comes in two parts:
	+ First they will leap into the air, where they will remain suspended for a period of time, then open-up their chest to release a globular homing projectile that explodes upon impact.
	+ Second, they will drop from the air and create a shockwave that deals damage in an area, but it doesn't displace players like the shockwaves from the Walker Warrior & Patriarch.
* After attacking the player, they will continue toward the core, but will attack again after a while if they have a player in range or are close to the core.
* They tend to spawn with various other enemies, as well as with other Spore Keepers.
* Spore keepers ignore G-2 Companions, Simo units & Explorer Conscripts.
* The Spore Keeper's balls deal 50 damage to the core when they are targeted to it and hit it successfully. Only the spore balls can damage the core, while the shockwave can hurt only players and friendly AI. If a player is in range, they might randomly shoot at him as well, even though they've started to shoot at the core before that.
* Their projectiles can be deflected when shot at, which causes them to home-in on the Spore Keeper instead, damaging it as well as stunning briefly. When their Spore ball is deflected to them, they suffer 1980 damage (i.e. the ball has 2000 pure dmg, but 20 is substracted due to the lume's armour). When they take damage this way, this applies Sweet's burning damage, Skye's warming-up passive and TSYGAN's damage bonus in the last shot. Weapon perks apply their effects with the deflected projectiles although sometimes in a different way, e.g. Hollowpoint rounds would deal 2x2000 - 20 = 3980 dmg every third hit and Slowing Rounds, Exposure rounds & Synergy will apply their respective debuffs. Spore Keepers, hit by deflected balls might suffer slight knockback.

## Notes & tactics

### Tower Strategies

* Slow but powerful towers are among the best against Spore Keepers, due to their high health. Some of these are Lightnings, Violators, Rockets, Friendship Lasers and upgraded Cannons.
* The Focus and the Orbital Strike Relays can also be very effective against Spore Keepers, so long as they are given enough time. Coupling these with disabling effects, such as Slows or Stuns, can allow these towers adequate time to deal substantial damage.
* Because of the time it takes for them to attack, one can easily aggro a Spore Keeper to keep them in range of a tower, or place towers near where they will be attacking the core.

### Player Strategies

* Their weakspot is their entire head, despite looking like the weakspot is only exposed from the front. However, their gait makes it somewhat difficult to hit since it moves from side to side a lot. It also becomes harder to hit when they attack, as their head will be most likely leaning away from you.
* Accurate weapons such as the Sniper Rifle are good at deflecting their projectiles, although Shotgun requires much less effort, since each shot contains multiple projectiles. Spore Keeper projectiles cannot be deflected by explosion damage, unlike the Mutator balls. The ETK-Tesla Prototype's primary fire also can do decent job without much need of accurate aiming.
* Their projectiles will detonate prematurely upon hitting a solid object, such as a ceiling, making it possible to find protection from their attacks while still keeping them in yours sights, but also losing the opportunity to stun them by hitting the projectiles.
* Running and jumping can also work well for evading the projectiles, but appears a bit hard, requiring randomly more jumping and changing movement direction. It can prove tricker if there are many Spore Keepers around.