INTRO:
Several months after the official launch of Sanctum, Coffee Stain Studios decided to supplement their revenue by offering premium additional content for the game. One of these packages is the Violator.
Compared to the other once-premium DLC that offers defences, the Violator is perhaps the most useful. However, it is not so good as to have been "pay-to-win" DLC, fortunately.
GAMEPLAY DESIGNS:
The Violator is practically a floating railgun platform. It is not the first floating platform to be seen in Sanctum, but it floats far higher than the rest.
This gives it a very high vantage point, allowing it to look over rows of blocks, especially those that are near and beneath it. This is just as well, because the Violator has a tremendously long range.
These advantages make the Violator a viable inclusion in most lists of defences that the player would devise. Wise players are likely to place it in the middle of mazes, thus always giving the Violator a target to shoot at throughout the Combat Phase.
Being a sci-fi railgun, the Violator's shots arrive at its target in an instant. This makes the Violator terrifically devastating against targets with tricky movement patterns, such as the Glider and the Dodger.
All of these advantages strongly suggest that the Violator is just overpowered; in fact, it can be seen as a straight upgrade to the Scatter Laser. However, it has quite a lot of drawbacks that affect its performance and even that of the player.
Firstly, the railgun platform of the Violator is huge. It can be an issue in maps that have flying aliens coming in from high altitudes. The map Bridge, in particular, can be made more difficult to play if the player has placed Violators such that they obstruct the player's view of the Spore Pods that come from behind the hills.
Secondly, the Violator is more expensive to upgrade than most defences. Its damage increases tremendously with each upgrade; this may seem desirable, but the Violator has a tendency to overkill its target due to the simple targeting A.I. of defences in Sanctum. The Violator will continue to fire at the same target until it dies, even if its killing shot inflicts more than ample damage.
Finally, the Violator can only ever apply damage on a single target. Considering that the Lumes tend to come in waves of large numbers, the Violator can be at a disadvantage if the player's other defences could not whittle them down to manageable numbers.
COMPLAINTS:
Unfortunately, the usefulness of the Violator had indirectly highlighted a consequence of the implementation of premium DLC that affects the multiplayer experience in Sanctum.
Players who had refused to buy the Violator DLC would not be able to help their team-mates that had bought it to upgrade any Violators that the latter players had built.
There was also a lost opportunity to promote the DLC to those who had not bought it. The game could have allowed players to pick the Violator as one of their building options when they join a session with players that have the DLC, but it did not.
AESTHETIC DESIGNS:
As mentioned a few times already, the Violator is a huge railgun. It is indeed very impressive looking, and even more impressive to look at when it gets into action. It has plenty of recoil animation, and the particle effects of its discharge are brilliant.
Its sound designs are just as impressive, and are perhaps of use to the player too. Considering the Violator's long range, its loud shots would tip the player off to the encroachment of Lumes that are not immediately in the player's view.
The models for its different levels of upgrades are not too different from each other though, so the player may have to look at the block that the Violator is built on to determine its level of upgrade. This is just as well, because looking up to examine the Violator can be time-consuming.
CONCLUSION:
The Violator is perhaps the best of the formerly premium-only defences. Its many advantages could have placed its gameplay balance into question, but it has enough setbacks to make it a convincingly appropriate addition to the defences in Sanctum.