Spore Keeper

Description
Spore Keepers are tall and somewhat-armored enemies featured in the The Last Stand DLC. They have a fairly large awareness radius, and are aggressive toward players.

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. After attacking once they will continue toward the core, but will eventually attack again if they still detect a threat.

They generally spawn with various other enemies, as well as several other Spore Keepers.

Tower Strategies

 * Slow but powerful towers are ideal against Spore Keepers, due to their high health. These can include Lightnings, Violators, Rockets, and Friendship Lasers.
 * Focus towers and 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.
 * 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.
 * Accurate weapons such as Sniper Rifle are good at deflecting their projectiles, however Shotgun requires much less effort, since each shot contains multiple projectiles. Spore Keeper projectiles cannot be deflected by explosion damage. 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.