EK-X

The EK-X (Egg King-X) series of bosses are powerful bosses based on the Egg, that were added in the game on September 21, 2019. EK-1 has existed with the release of the game but has been changed numerous times. EK-2 was also added on September 21, but secretly. EK-3, EK-4, EK-5, and EK-6 release dates are not known, but EK-6 was added far later than all other EK-X. EK-1 can spawn from the death of Egg Sanctuary, EK-2 can evolve from EK-1 if it survives for exactly 10 minutes. EK-3, EK-4, EK-5, and EK-6 are developer-only tiers, because of the fact of how OP they are and what lag they can potentially cause.

Each EK-X has unique features exclusive to this boss. Firstly, EK-X has a central cannon, that gets stronger with each tier. Cannon of EK-1 is Triplet, but cannons of other EK-X are unique. Starting from EK-4, this boss can spawn minions. Minions respawn immediately after they die, and attack the closest tank. With each next tier, minions get stronger and grow in numbers. EK-6 has 20+ minions, four of which are the EK-1.

EK-1 is extremely common. EK-2 is rarer but sometimes seen, especially if some player tediously protects it. EK-3 was seen multiple times used by developers on normal servers. EK-4 and EK-5 have only been seen for one time, used by the game developer in a normal server. EK-6 was never seen outside of developer events.

Tiers
EK-1=

Design
EK-1 has a white circular base, similar to Egg, with an attached Smasher. On the top of its base, EK-1 has a Triplet turret. On each side of the attached smasher, EK-1 has an auto-turret.

Technical
EK-1 has low health and incredibly low speed. Its Triplet turret is not very strong, but it can out-penetrate tanks with low rate of fire. Its auto-turrets are pretty weak but combined with triplet turret they can kill tanks with low DPS or low rate of fire. Only four auto-turrets can be focused on a single player at once. If alive for 10 minutes, it will evolve into EK-2.

Countering
EK-1 is one of the easiest bosses to fight, but still, you must be careful. As a bullet spammer, your job is simple - focus all your firepower on EK-1. You will likely penetrate the bullets of EK-1, but to make the job faster, you can move in a left-right pattern in order to trick EK-1 into missing more bullets. As a tank with low rate of fire, be more careful. If EK-1 can penetrate your bullets, try to hit the sides of its hitbox. As sides have no auto-turrets, you will likely land most bullets in them. In order to ensure you will land many bullets, move in a straight line, instead of dodging.

As a drone user, the Pounder branch, you have a slightly different strategy. As a drone user, wait until you have a maximum number of drones, and then charge them at EK-1. As a Pounder branch, try to use a hit-and-run strategy so that you will take almost no damage, while EK-1 will take a lot. As a minion user, you can use either strategy. Be wary of other players around, though. Also, the bullets of EK-1 are not very deadly, you will not be able to fight back two sides at once. Eliminate the player first, then come back to killing EK-1. Do not be afraid to ram into EK-1 if it is low on health if you want to get the kill and another player also damages it. Despite EK-1 has smasher, it does not do a lot of damage.
 * -|EK-2=

Design
EK-2 has a white circular base, similar to Egg, with an attached Smasher. On the top of its base, EK-2 has a single Swivel-2 turret. On each other side of the attached smasher, EK-2 has a deferred Gunner auto-turret. On every other side of the smasher, EK-2 has a long swarm drone launcher and two Basic auto-turrets. EK-2 is 1.5x larger than EK-1.

Technical
EK-2 has far higher health than EK-1, as much as most normal bosses. EK-2 also has a faster speed than EK-1, but still relatively slow. EK-2 main turret shoots powerful, fast black bullets, unique to this boss. Bullets have high penetration, damage, and speed, but medium health. Gunner auto-turrets of EK-2 are strong and fire powerful bullets. One gunner auto-turret is weaker than its main turret, but two auto-turrets are approximately equal. Its basic auto-turrets do not help the boss much. EK-2 constantly spawns strong swarm drones, which have high speed, decent damage. They have similar stats to Cruiser swarm drones, but with higher speed and penetration.

Countering
It is far harder to kill EK-2 than EK-1, and there are two reasons for that. Firstly, EK-2 has high firepower, capable of penetrating most Machine Gun branch tanks. Heavily focused bullet spammers can counter the EK-2's bullets if they are also dodging, but they typically counter another problem. One of the main strengths of EK-2 is its swarm drones: they have high speed and decent damage, capable of killing most tanks relatively fast. Swarm drones circle around the tanks, come from the flanks and then collide with the player. Swarm drones eliminate focused fire tanks, bullets eliminate bullet spammers with some spread.

Considering all of the above, it will prove a problem to kill EK-2 in solo. Firstly, bullet spammers are nearly useless against this boss. Minions will just get eliminated by the main turret of EK-2, while drones can only be used for defensive purposes. Splitter will just get surrounded by its swarm drones. If you are not skilled, do not fight EK-2 in solo. If you are skilled, however, you should use the block branch. Rebounder, Builder branch, and if used correctly Engineer branch can kill EK-2 in solo. Firstly, you need some Shield regeneration, so that you can neglect the effect of at least some swarm drones. Also, you will need movement speed in order to dodge the bullets. The whole strategy revolves around building some fortifications for yourself and exploiting block boomerang mechanic in order to hit the boss from its back. Firstly, make sure you have some blocks around you, in order to protect yourself from incoming fire. Renew the defense whenever possible. Send your blocks/pillboxes slightly further from EK-2, and then quickly turn your mouse on the center of EK-2's base. In this way, you will be able to hit EK-2 from its back.

Fighting in teams is very efficient, as one player will distract all the swarm drones. If there are some swarm drones around you, kill them first. EK-2 will likely focus only its gunner auto-turret on you, which has decent firepower by itself. Dodge in a left-right pattern to make it miss more. EK-2 will be unable to defend from two players effectively and will die.


 * -|EK-3=

Design
EK-3 has a white circular base, similar to Egg, with an attached Emitter base. In the center of its base, EK-3 has a shorter Devastator turret. Around the devastator turret, EK-3 has three drone spawners on its base. On the attached Emitter, EK-3 either has two long swarm drone spawners, or two Twin auto-turrets, alternating.

Technical
EK-3 has higher health than EK-2 but moves as fast as EK-2. Main turret of EK-3 is incredibly strong, capable of penetrating any bullet tank in the game. It fires two quick, strong bullets in rapid succession, first stronger and slower, second slightly weaker but quicker, just like Hunter branch. Twin auto-turrets of the boss are pretty decent. Although bullets are not really strong, they do high damage, have high speed and decent penetration. Swarm drones of EK-3 are even stronger than before, they have higher speed, higher damage, and health. They are spawned two times faster than EK-2's swarm drones, and there are three times more swarm drones than before. EK-3 also spawns drones at a fast rate, all of which have high damage, speed, health, and penetration.

Countering
Killing EK-3 is a major challenge, far harder than killing EK-2. EK-3 can perish most tanks in a matter of seconds, but can still be defeated. No single player can cope with its penetration, damage, and drones, as well as no sole player, can him it by themselves. If you want to kill EK-3, you will require excellent coordination with other players, as well as a team of 3+ players. EK-3 is approximately as strong as pre-nerf Elite Inferno, so make sure your team has strong tanks and is ready to work together. If you, however, encounter EK-3 in solo, you have only one option. RUN.

If you are in a team, however, you should note these problems. Firstly, EK-3 has far stronger swarm drones, as well as regular drones capable of penetrating most bullets. As such, it would be ideal to have a distraction, so that drones of EK-3 would be distracted on another player. Booster branch and Jump Smasher branch can do this ideally. As a distracting player, your primary goal is to lure all drones away, and as such, try to dodge all the drones, while keeping them close. Secondly, try to get two attacking players. Preferably bullet spammers, as they will deal the most damage. Splitter is also very effective for this, because of its high DPS. Other tanks are not as effective, as your twin-turrets can still be a nuisance. As an attacking player, do not forget about EK-3 drones. If you are attacked by an EK-3 swarm drone, kill the swarm drone first. If you are attacked by EK-3 drone, retreat and focus all firepower on the drone. Ideally, you should shoot into the closest swarm drone launcher to minimize the possible amount of drones. High DPS tank and Engineer branch tank can ideally accomplish the goal of killing drones meanwhile damaging EK-3.
 * -|EK-4=
 * -|EK-5=
 * -|EK-6=

Trivia

 * The EK-1 was originally called Elite Smasher.
 * The EK-5 Hunter Minion is also in the Bosses category under the name of Ultra Cannon.
 * Tank named "EK-0" is playable and is similar to EK-1
 * EK-2 is the only boss to have spawn animation.
 * EK-4 is the first boss to have respawnable mini-bosses as minions. Later more TESTBED bosses followed.
 * The mini-bosses of EK-4 are unique and are counted as X-K-X minibosses
 * EK-5 along with EK-6 are currently the only bosses that spawn other bosses.