For just credibility purposes I will post my screenshot of statistics.
I have 297 wins, not quite leaderboard, but I have seen all 5 of the leading players in wins, and played with 3. Often with one of them who is a good friend of mine, and frequently with another. My win to game ratio is currently 0.7836411609498681. So basically, I have won ¾ of the games I played. If I get disconnected, then it is counted as a loss. Short disclaimer, I have learned many things from this game from others, and it is impossible for me to mention where all my knowledge came from, if you think that I used your original thought then you can mention such in the comments and I will reply. Additionally, all information is by my current knowledge and current version, which is subject to change.
This part of the guide will be specific to individual mobs what their uses are and how to stop them.
Zombies:
EXP to coin ratio: 50%
They come in droves at the beginning. They have the highest coin to exp ratio. When I am going for my goldmine upgrades I always use these for the first two goldmine upgrades (10 cps(coins per second) and 15 cps). I will usually use them for my third goldmine unless I am going for 50cps in which case I will use cave spiders. The best way to stop them is to place a level 3 mage in a double hit spot or a level 3 mage and a level 3 ice.
Spiders:
EXP to coin ratio: 40%
You will face these in most games. They have a decent exp to coin ratio. They are a faster mob, so if you want your exp faster you can use spiders. If you have a level 4 mage and a level 4 ice in a double hit location, then it kills them or you can place two level 4 mage towers and level 4 ice towers a little way away from each other.
Cave spiders:
EXP to coin ratio: 42.857142% (857142 repeats indefinitely)
These are seen in almost every game. They have the second too best exp to coin ratio and ideal to get up to 25 cps from 15 alternating cave spiders and zombies. Then to continue to use them to get up to 50 cps. Same as spiders, if you have a level 4 mage and a level 4 ice in a double hit location then it kills them or you can place two level 4 mage towers and level 4 ice towers. The Offensive uses for cave spiders. This is known as the cave yolo strategy you basically send a horde of cave spiders and speed them until they reach a mage tower and regen them. Because regen potions heal faster than mage damage this can be very effective. However, it is a yolo strategy because it is stopped by just a meteor pot or inferno pot and if they are supported well you may need multiple pots.
Creepers:
Exp to coin ratio: 25%
A dreaded thing to see by newer players, but a quick battery set up for pros. They are not good to get exp from because they are slow and hard to kill, it will take you forever to get your exp. I will explain the term battery in the later section. If your opponent does not have many level 4 artillery, quake, or poison. An effective method to win is to speed and regen 12 creepers very early in the game, like 10 minutes or less. After that unless if it is a 1v1 then creepers have little chance to take them out. I would recommend a full battery, but if you are low on coins 3 level 4 art and a level 4 quake plus a slow pot will take them out.
Zombie Pigmen:
Exp to coin ratio: 30%
Pigmen are fast but have low health. Pigmen are good to alternate with caves if the goal is to get to 50cps. Like creepers a quick battery will take them out. If you are a little short on coins, you can wait to place the quake tower. Four level 4 artilleries and a level 4 ice will take them out.
Skeletons:
Exp to coin ratio: 25%
First I would like to mention that skeletons have 300 health on their first life and 150 on their second. Skeletons are not bad for exp if you are going for 50 cps but I would recommend Pigmen. Similar to creepers and Pigmen, a battery will do take these out, just make sure you have full ice coverage. However, they are not affected by quake towers so place two more artillery.
Silverfish:
I will simply stop mentioning the exp ratios because this mob and the following should not be used for exp. Therefore, for the next mobs I will simply describe the offensive use and how to stop them. Silverfish should simply not be supported with regen or speed. They are not strong enough for that. If you are going to be sending giants, you may want to send a few of these to get them to build archers instead of artillery. But not recommended. The method to stop this is simply a line of level 4 archers and/or several level 4 mage and level 4 ice.
Endermites:
These are the most interesting and can be the scariest mob early game. If you are playing with several people you know, you can send like 36 or 48 endermites supported with potions, it is hard to stop for sure. However, if the other team does manage to stop those mites, then you have left your side defenseless, and you gave the other team a bunch of mob coin (I will go over mob coin later). Defensive side of things, if you see endermites 12 or less just build like two or three lines of archers, and if they start throwing regen or speed just slow them and get a meteor ready. If they send 24, or more seriously, 36 or more, this is a serious threat to your victory. You will need lots and lots of archers, and freeze pots and meteor pots. This is scarier than 12 supported blazes, because generally it is earlier in the game.
Blazes:
These are the most effective mob, but at the same time very scary to see. It is difficult to stop 12 of these when they are supported. When you send blazes try the best you can to not send them around other mobs because then the artillery towers will deal damage to your blazes. Keep in mind, every time I do my blaze rush, it is about 15,000 coins and that includes sending the blaze and pre-buying the potions. It takes about 19 minutes to get that much coins. Which is right when the 1 min warning for Armageddon appears. This is the best time to rush blaze. The method to stop them is to have a ton of archers, and while the blazes are going through the archers you freeze and meteor pot them to death. If they are doing a good job supporting them, that could mean 4-12 meteor pots. That whole section is when you are only dealing with 12. If you are dealing with more than 24. I recommend a leach, but not necessary. One of my friends once stopped 48 blazes with only archers. If they are supporting those 24 or more blazes then you need a lot of slow and a bunch of meteor pots, like 10 meteor pots at least. If you are using a leach, make sure that you concentrate your potions as it travels around the leach but still back up the leach with a bunch of archers. Another friend once stopped 42 blaze and 4 giants at once by himself, if it weren’t for his leach he probably wouldn’t have stopped them.
Witches:
I have not experimented with witches too much. I have seen people send witches primarily with cave spiders, but also with flying mobs like blaze or endermites. However, this will cause any artillery to fire and damage your cave spiders or flying mobs. However, from what I have noticed their regen effect extends quite a distance, and can be useful regening different mobs. If your witches are enough behind the cave spiders, they will heal the cave spiders while the artillery aren’t effecting the cave spiders. Witches may be useful to send with a giant. But I don’t recommend using them. You can simply stop them with a battery.
Slimes:
I would recommend against using slimes, magma cubes are much better. If it is a 1v1 situation slimes may be necessary, but those are special and I still would recommend against it. And if you are going to use them as your main offense support them with speed and regen and note that if they die at the castle they will not split. They can just be stopped by an extended battery or by a battery aided by slow pots.
Magma cubes:
Magma cubes do have some uses in many 1v1 situations, and in some 1v1 situations it would be your best option. Just be sure to support the magma cubes and note that if they die at the castle it will not split. These can be stopped by an extended battery with slow pots.
Giants:
These have lots of health and are very challenging to take out if you are not careful. It is important to note that speed has a very minimal effect on giants if it affects them. I believe speed doesn’t affect the giant at all. Regen does affect the giant. Now if the giant dies at or very near the castle it does not split into the magmas and slimes, however anywhere else it dies it will split into the magmas and slimes. The best method to stop a giant is to have two level 3 necromancer towers and slow it around the necromancer towers and that will drop the giant, then have an extended battery behind the necromancers, then slow the magmas around the battery and they will die. If it is multiple giants I would recommend 4-5 necromancer towers and an extended battery behind it. Slow the giants through and they will die. If you are dealing with 12 or more giants, I would recommend 7-11 necromancer towers, and two battery’s behind them and maybe a leach or 2, but you don’t need the leach, it is just nice to have in those scenarios. You will need to use more defensive potions on the giants than just freezing, you will need meteor and/or Zeus rage potions. In those rare scenarios where the opponent sends a giant 5-10 minutes in before you have the chance to place necromancer towers. Place 2 level 4 Zeus towers next to the Castle. They will kill the giant and the giant will do a maximum of 400 health to your castle.
Wither:
The wither has very good natural regeneration, I think better than creepers. The wither is not affected by speed pots or slow pots; however, it is affected by regen, meteor and Zeus rage, not sure on inferno or not. I have toyed with the idea of regenerating the wither through the opponent’s map as a form of offense. The best way to kill the wither is a lot of artillery and scattered sorcerer towers. The sorcerer towers block the wither’s bullets but other than that sorcerer towers aren’t that great, some of my friends even sell their sorcerer towers after the wither dies. When you have enough people doing defense you can put Zeus rage and meteor pots on the wither, it is important to note that the effects stack, and it does a lot of damage. Only 2 of each are needed to kill it assuming there is plenty of level 4 artillery and sorcerers. If you are only using potions to kill the wither it is possible, if you stack 4 or 5 Zeus rage and meteor pots, that is enough to kill the wither.
Defense:
This second section of the guide will be about the specifics of towers and how they work according to my current knowledge, also cool defensive tricks. But before I go too far I would like to give a quick analogy of something I call “mob coin.” When you or your towers kill a mob, you get an increase in coin. I have been trying to pinpoint the ratio of coins spent by the opponent to coins received by the player when that mob is killed. The mob coin ratio does change from mob to mob, and from if you kill the mob with a tower compared to with your sword. Additionally, if the mob has been damaged by another person’s tower then the mob coin is split and that split varies. I am uncertain whether the “mob coin” varies from which tower you kill the mob with or if you kill multiple mobs at once you get a coin boost. So unfortunately, the formula for “mob coin” is very difficult to calculate. However, I will go over what I noticed from mob coin to show its significance. When you kill a zombie with your sword it is a coin increase of 15. I am not sure on what it is when you kill a zombie with a tower. The coin received from killing zombies with towers is greater than 10 per zombie for sure. In terms of giants on the other hand, I am not sure if it varies from whether you kill it and it splits or if you kill it at the castle. I have noticed that from killing a giant you get around 2000 coins. If that giant splits you do receive “mob coin” from the “trailings.” I will continue testing the “mob coin” but that is the limited information I could collect. Thus, when all the mob coin is concentrated in one person from 6 people on the other team sending mobs, that person gets ridiculous amounts of coins, like getting 6k coins within 5 minutes from the start of the game while sending zombies and building towers.
Archery Towers:
Generally, archers belong in the middle to the back of the map with ice spread through those areas to help deal with silverfish, endermites, and blazes. An interesting concept is to only upgrade them to level 3. However, at level 3 you have 14 blocks of range and the archer tower shoots 3 arrows. On the other hand, at level 4 you have 15 blocks of range and the archer tower shoots 4 arrows. The difference is not only the 1 extra block of range but one more mob being targeted. That is why I upgrade to level 4 and not just level 3. When I say 4 arrows, this means that the tower is attacking 4 mobs at once. So, if you are only facing 1-3 mobs, then yes a level 3 archer will do just about as much damage as a level 4 archer. However, 4 or more mobs a level 4 archer will do significantly more damage than a level 3. Another interesting fact about archers is they do not shoot through artillery towers. However, they do shoot through ice and mage towers, and occasionally other archers, though it is relatively uncommon for an archer to shoot through another archer.
Ice Towers:
Ice towers are some of my personal favorite towers. The effects of ice do not stack (more ice next to each other doesn’t mean that the mobs are even slower) so you want to place them far enough apart so that the effect isn’t being wasted, but close enough together where they are almost always in ice. With the ice, I will go ahead and mention exp drying. This is a strategy where you make it so it takes the other team a long time to get their exp. Thus, they cannot get their goldmine upgrades as fast and cannot send stronger mobs as fast. This works because they get their exp when their mobs die. This picture below is both almost optimal ice placement for the maps demons, plus exp drying at its finest. In this picture, there is only one area of slight ice stacking, the 2 ice in the back closest to the castle are unfortunately unavoidable, and the area of overlap is small. The gains of the second ice are just too important not to have one there. In the very back there is a sample extended battery. If you are going to have a regular battery on this map there I would recommend 5 instead of four, and the 5 that are in between the quake and the ice. I like to extend the 2 or 3 on each side to make speed and regen have minimal effect on creepers (as in they can’t make it through).
Mage Towers:
Similar to ice, the effects of mage towers do not stack (more mage towers does not mean increased burn time or burn damage). Mage towers are a bit more interesting to talk about, if you look at the picture above you will notice that I only have one mage, and that the mobs are not always on fire. There are two purposes for this, if you have noticed, the mobs stay on fire after they pass out of the range of the mage towers, this time you want to maximize to get the most damage output of each mage tower. Second, the second time the mobs pass the mage tower it will guarantee the kill on zombies, cave spiders, and spiders.
Artillery Towers:
The Artillery towers are your bread and butter, they take out the wither, they take out 8 of the other mobs. Generally, you would like a bunch of these at the beginning and a few at the end to clean up from giants. And if you have enough of them they can take out a giant. Artillery need to be level 4 to do damage though, level 1 artillery do almost nothing. I will now discuss the battery. The battery is simply a quick term for saying 4 artilleries, 1 quake, 1 ice all level 4 on a critical point (A place that hits for more than one pass, generally like those depicted below). An Extended battery has about 4 to 8 more level 4 artillery. An example battery is shown with the picture below. (note that an actual battery has the sorcerer switched with a level 4 artillery, the sorcerer is there to prevent towers from being blown up by the wither)
This is another battery:
Poison Towers:
The Poison Towers are very interesting to discuss. They are the most expensive of the effect towers (the effect towers being ice, mage, quake) (also like the other effect towers the effect does not stack). I am not entirely sure on the entire effects of the poison towers. I do not think that poisoned mobs take more damage from other towers. The poison effect does more damage than the creepers regenerate. The effect also extends far beyond where the towers are. After the mobs are poisoned by a level 4 poison tower they stay poisoned for like 30-45 blocks after going out of range of the poison. Additionally, poison towers cannot attack through other towers. In a pro defense when there are at least 3 people on defense I would recommend two level 4 poison tower, when it is just 2 people doing defense It can be used, but I would recommend against it. I would not recommend more than three level 4 poison tower.
Sorcerer Towers:
The sorcerer towers do decent damage. However, they are just 50 coins cheaper than a necromancer tower with much less damage output than a necromancer tower. The reason to use sorcerer towers are solely on the fact that they target the wither while the necromancer tower rarely targets the wither. On top of the fact that the sorcerer towers target the wither, they also block the wither from destroying towers. One level 4 sorcerers stop the wither from destroying towers most of the time. If there are two level 4 sorcerer towers it almost guarantees that the wither will not be able to destroy a tower.
Zeus Towers:
Zeus towers will only target one mob at a time, and do significant damage. The only mob they will not target is cave spiders. They are superior to necromancer and sorcerer towers in the fact that they deal damage to flying mobs. They do about as much damage as a sorcerer tower, maybe more, maybe a little less, but significantly less than a necromancer tower. These are useful in the back next to the castle, and in critical spots where they will be in range to hit mobs many times.
Turret Towers:
Simply don’t use them end of story, archers are cheaper and do more damage. Turrets are out classed by Leach and Zeus Towers. Ymbmg95 has mentioned in almost every guide of his that they are bad and why, shouldn’t have to go over it. If cubecraft doubled or tripled their rate or arrow output or both then I may reconsider. Until then, just don’t use them.
Necromancer Towers:
I recommend placing them near artillery, ice and quake towers. Also, Necromancer towers need to be placed together because when they attack they slow the mob further, and if you have a lot of them the slow effect does stack if all the iron golems are all attacking the same mob, the mob basically becomes immobilized for a few seconds. Necromancer Towers are awesome against giants, other than that, not that great. However, Giants are enough of a threat to warrant the use of them. On another note, I recommend not placing them in multi hit areas or near stair cases. The iron golems tend to derp up and not do damage when you need them to. Also, level 1 necromancer towers and level 2 necromancer towers the iron golems are really derpy, but level 3 Necromancer towers are amazing. I recommend not putting them to close to the front cause then “Golem error” tends to happen. Basically, they don’t hit what they need to. However, they shouldn’t be too far in the back because you need some time to kill the magma cubes and slimes after the giants die.
Quake Towers:
These are seriously some of the most useful towers in the game, they make creeper slaying easy, they are good late game to kill droves of magmas and slimes after the giants fall. Like the other effect towers, they do not stack. More quake towers doesn’t mean more Stunning of the mobs. The quake towers are perfect to use with artillery and ice towers. On the cave map if you place a level 4 quake tower underneath the bridge then it does affect the mobs above, however it does not show the particles. It is a very interesting phenomenon.
Leach Towers:
These are the hardest to talk about, because on the one hand they are useful, but on the other hand leach towers are terrible. Leach towers have one purpose to go off. If they do not go off when you need it most, they were not worth it. In addition, the leach towers are the most expensive towers in the game, place them where they will be in use the longest and have the best chance of going off. There are two reasons to use leach towers. First, when your necromancer towers kill a giant or multiple of them then you can slow the magma cubes around the leach and the leach will go off multiple times taking them all out. However, I wouldn’t rely on this because the other team can make the leach less effective by throwing speed pots. The only other use for a leach tower and the only reason I personally would place one is for end game. Where the only way to get through the incredible defense is 48+ blaze or 12+ giants. When the leach will affect 48+ blaze at once and take a quarter of their health, then it was worth it. Or if the leach goes off 2 or 3 times on 36 magma cubes and takes all of them out, then it was worth it, but if your defense cannot handle 12 blaze and 4 giants, then I wouldn’t recommend a leach tower. Therefore, in 90% of the games I play I never place a leach. Because those games I win at Armageddon when you don’t need any leach towers. They will likely not send 48 blaze or 12 giants at Armageddon, and if they do record it and send me a link because I want to see it. Additionally, Leach towers cause crazy lag when they go off.
I will cap this off with an image of an ideal defense on an Original map, keep in mind that we each had several freeze and meteor pre-bought.
This is so close to perfectly optimal. I only disagree with one thing with this defense. The necromancer tower that is closest to the leach tower is too far away from the other necromancer towers. Ideally, you want your necromancer towers as close to each other as possible. However, there is a reason why he placed a necromancer tower there. The Necromancer tower fit perfectly in that spot. A few of the key highlights of the defense, and what could be attempted to get through this defense. Almost any given point of this defense aside from two corners have full ice coverage. There are 3 mage towers to make it more difficult for a cave yolo. There are archers and the occasional Zeus and leach to make blaze rushes very difficult. There is another battery in the back just in case if the “giant trailings” get to far and they are supporting them so well that the first battery and the leaches don’t take them out. There are pretty much only two things that can get through this defense. When you see a defense this optimal there will be defensive potions. Thus, you must plan your assault accordingly. Additionally, this defense cannot be broken by one person alone. There are 4 potential methods of breaking through this defense. The first being 24 blazes, this could be the easiest for you and a friend to send and support, any more than this and you risk the leach towers going off. You will need to concentrate speed while the blazes are going around the leach towers. And you will need to keep one person throwing regen everywhere else. Against the team that built this defense it would not take us out, however it does have a decent chance to touch the castle. The next option that could potentially work is a cave yolo, though it will likely not work if the team is as optimal as the defense. The next two options have a pretty good chance of touching the castle and potentially winning, however, they take absurd amounts of coins to pull off. The next option to take this defense out is simply overwhelming them with blazes. I mean sending around 100 blazes. You will basically just try to speed as many as you can to the castle and then throw regen when they ever make it. Honestly, I am not sure if we would stop around 100 blazes or not. Though we potentially could with the setup we had. The third option is sending so many giants at once that the necromancer towers can’t keep up. You will need at least 12 to achieve this, though if we start throwing meteor or Zeus rage, 12 won’t make it through. Thus, I recommend 20-24, not only will the necromancers not be able to keep up, defensive potions will have struggle to drop the giants before they get to the castle. Support the giants with regen as well as speed when the giants drop. This defense was made by 3 people.
Thank you for reading my Guide to Tower Defense. If you want to see another guide from me, please mention so in the comments and perhaps even give me a topic or general scenario you want me to discuss in an upcoming guide.
Hope to see you in a game some time!
I have 297 wins, not quite leaderboard, but I have seen all 5 of the leading players in wins, and played with 3. Often with one of them who is a good friend of mine, and frequently with another. My win to game ratio is currently 0.7836411609498681. So basically, I have won ¾ of the games I played. If I get disconnected, then it is counted as a loss. Short disclaimer, I have learned many things from this game from others, and it is impossible for me to mention where all my knowledge came from, if you think that I used your original thought then you can mention such in the comments and I will reply. Additionally, all information is by my current knowledge and current version, which is subject to change.
This part of the guide will be specific to individual mobs what their uses are and how to stop them.
Zombies:
EXP to coin ratio: 50%
They come in droves at the beginning. They have the highest coin to exp ratio. When I am going for my goldmine upgrades I always use these for the first two goldmine upgrades (10 cps(coins per second) and 15 cps). I will usually use them for my third goldmine unless I am going for 50cps in which case I will use cave spiders. The best way to stop them is to place a level 3 mage in a double hit spot or a level 3 mage and a level 3 ice.
Spiders:
EXP to coin ratio: 40%
You will face these in most games. They have a decent exp to coin ratio. They are a faster mob, so if you want your exp faster you can use spiders. If you have a level 4 mage and a level 4 ice in a double hit location, then it kills them or you can place two level 4 mage towers and level 4 ice towers a little way away from each other.
Cave spiders:
EXP to coin ratio: 42.857142% (857142 repeats indefinitely)
These are seen in almost every game. They have the second too best exp to coin ratio and ideal to get up to 25 cps from 15 alternating cave spiders and zombies. Then to continue to use them to get up to 50 cps. Same as spiders, if you have a level 4 mage and a level 4 ice in a double hit location then it kills them or you can place two level 4 mage towers and level 4 ice towers. The Offensive uses for cave spiders. This is known as the cave yolo strategy you basically send a horde of cave spiders and speed them until they reach a mage tower and regen them. Because regen potions heal faster than mage damage this can be very effective. However, it is a yolo strategy because it is stopped by just a meteor pot or inferno pot and if they are supported well you may need multiple pots.
Creepers:
Exp to coin ratio: 25%
A dreaded thing to see by newer players, but a quick battery set up for pros. They are not good to get exp from because they are slow and hard to kill, it will take you forever to get your exp. I will explain the term battery in the later section. If your opponent does not have many level 4 artillery, quake, or poison. An effective method to win is to speed and regen 12 creepers very early in the game, like 10 minutes or less. After that unless if it is a 1v1 then creepers have little chance to take them out. I would recommend a full battery, but if you are low on coins 3 level 4 art and a level 4 quake plus a slow pot will take them out.
Zombie Pigmen:
Exp to coin ratio: 30%
Pigmen are fast but have low health. Pigmen are good to alternate with caves if the goal is to get to 50cps. Like creepers a quick battery will take them out. If you are a little short on coins, you can wait to place the quake tower. Four level 4 artilleries and a level 4 ice will take them out.
Skeletons:
Exp to coin ratio: 25%
First I would like to mention that skeletons have 300 health on their first life and 150 on their second. Skeletons are not bad for exp if you are going for 50 cps but I would recommend Pigmen. Similar to creepers and Pigmen, a battery will do take these out, just make sure you have full ice coverage. However, they are not affected by quake towers so place two more artillery.
Silverfish:
I will simply stop mentioning the exp ratios because this mob and the following should not be used for exp. Therefore, for the next mobs I will simply describe the offensive use and how to stop them. Silverfish should simply not be supported with regen or speed. They are not strong enough for that. If you are going to be sending giants, you may want to send a few of these to get them to build archers instead of artillery. But not recommended. The method to stop this is simply a line of level 4 archers and/or several level 4 mage and level 4 ice.
Endermites:
These are the most interesting and can be the scariest mob early game. If you are playing with several people you know, you can send like 36 or 48 endermites supported with potions, it is hard to stop for sure. However, if the other team does manage to stop those mites, then you have left your side defenseless, and you gave the other team a bunch of mob coin (I will go over mob coin later). Defensive side of things, if you see endermites 12 or less just build like two or three lines of archers, and if they start throwing regen or speed just slow them and get a meteor ready. If they send 24, or more seriously, 36 or more, this is a serious threat to your victory. You will need lots and lots of archers, and freeze pots and meteor pots. This is scarier than 12 supported blazes, because generally it is earlier in the game.
Blazes:
These are the most effective mob, but at the same time very scary to see. It is difficult to stop 12 of these when they are supported. When you send blazes try the best you can to not send them around other mobs because then the artillery towers will deal damage to your blazes. Keep in mind, every time I do my blaze rush, it is about 15,000 coins and that includes sending the blaze and pre-buying the potions. It takes about 19 minutes to get that much coins. Which is right when the 1 min warning for Armageddon appears. This is the best time to rush blaze. The method to stop them is to have a ton of archers, and while the blazes are going through the archers you freeze and meteor pot them to death. If they are doing a good job supporting them, that could mean 4-12 meteor pots. That whole section is when you are only dealing with 12. If you are dealing with more than 24. I recommend a leach, but not necessary. One of my friends once stopped 48 blazes with only archers. If they are supporting those 24 or more blazes then you need a lot of slow and a bunch of meteor pots, like 10 meteor pots at least. If you are using a leach, make sure that you concentrate your potions as it travels around the leach but still back up the leach with a bunch of archers. Another friend once stopped 42 blaze and 4 giants at once by himself, if it weren’t for his leach he probably wouldn’t have stopped them.
Witches:
I have not experimented with witches too much. I have seen people send witches primarily with cave spiders, but also with flying mobs like blaze or endermites. However, this will cause any artillery to fire and damage your cave spiders or flying mobs. However, from what I have noticed their regen effect extends quite a distance, and can be useful regening different mobs. If your witches are enough behind the cave spiders, they will heal the cave spiders while the artillery aren’t effecting the cave spiders. Witches may be useful to send with a giant. But I don’t recommend using them. You can simply stop them with a battery.
Slimes:
I would recommend against using slimes, magma cubes are much better. If it is a 1v1 situation slimes may be necessary, but those are special and I still would recommend against it. And if you are going to use them as your main offense support them with speed and regen and note that if they die at the castle they will not split. They can just be stopped by an extended battery or by a battery aided by slow pots.
Magma cubes:
Magma cubes do have some uses in many 1v1 situations, and in some 1v1 situations it would be your best option. Just be sure to support the magma cubes and note that if they die at the castle it will not split. These can be stopped by an extended battery with slow pots.
Giants:
These have lots of health and are very challenging to take out if you are not careful. It is important to note that speed has a very minimal effect on giants if it affects them. I believe speed doesn’t affect the giant at all. Regen does affect the giant. Now if the giant dies at or very near the castle it does not split into the magmas and slimes, however anywhere else it dies it will split into the magmas and slimes. The best method to stop a giant is to have two level 3 necromancer towers and slow it around the necromancer towers and that will drop the giant, then have an extended battery behind the necromancers, then slow the magmas around the battery and they will die. If it is multiple giants I would recommend 4-5 necromancer towers and an extended battery behind it. Slow the giants through and they will die. If you are dealing with 12 or more giants, I would recommend 7-11 necromancer towers, and two battery’s behind them and maybe a leach or 2, but you don’t need the leach, it is just nice to have in those scenarios. You will need to use more defensive potions on the giants than just freezing, you will need meteor and/or Zeus rage potions. In those rare scenarios where the opponent sends a giant 5-10 minutes in before you have the chance to place necromancer towers. Place 2 level 4 Zeus towers next to the Castle. They will kill the giant and the giant will do a maximum of 400 health to your castle.
Wither:
The wither has very good natural regeneration, I think better than creepers. The wither is not affected by speed pots or slow pots; however, it is affected by regen, meteor and Zeus rage, not sure on inferno or not. I have toyed with the idea of regenerating the wither through the opponent’s map as a form of offense. The best way to kill the wither is a lot of artillery and scattered sorcerer towers. The sorcerer towers block the wither’s bullets but other than that sorcerer towers aren’t that great, some of my friends even sell their sorcerer towers after the wither dies. When you have enough people doing defense you can put Zeus rage and meteor pots on the wither, it is important to note that the effects stack, and it does a lot of damage. Only 2 of each are needed to kill it assuming there is plenty of level 4 artillery and sorcerers. If you are only using potions to kill the wither it is possible, if you stack 4 or 5 Zeus rage and meteor pots, that is enough to kill the wither.
Defense:
This second section of the guide will be about the specifics of towers and how they work according to my current knowledge, also cool defensive tricks. But before I go too far I would like to give a quick analogy of something I call “mob coin.” When you or your towers kill a mob, you get an increase in coin. I have been trying to pinpoint the ratio of coins spent by the opponent to coins received by the player when that mob is killed. The mob coin ratio does change from mob to mob, and from if you kill the mob with a tower compared to with your sword. Additionally, if the mob has been damaged by another person’s tower then the mob coin is split and that split varies. I am uncertain whether the “mob coin” varies from which tower you kill the mob with or if you kill multiple mobs at once you get a coin boost. So unfortunately, the formula for “mob coin” is very difficult to calculate. However, I will go over what I noticed from mob coin to show its significance. When you kill a zombie with your sword it is a coin increase of 15. I am not sure on what it is when you kill a zombie with a tower. The coin received from killing zombies with towers is greater than 10 per zombie for sure. In terms of giants on the other hand, I am not sure if it varies from whether you kill it and it splits or if you kill it at the castle. I have noticed that from killing a giant you get around 2000 coins. If that giant splits you do receive “mob coin” from the “trailings.” I will continue testing the “mob coin” but that is the limited information I could collect. Thus, when all the mob coin is concentrated in one person from 6 people on the other team sending mobs, that person gets ridiculous amounts of coins, like getting 6k coins within 5 minutes from the start of the game while sending zombies and building towers.
Archery Towers:
Generally, archers belong in the middle to the back of the map with ice spread through those areas to help deal with silverfish, endermites, and blazes. An interesting concept is to only upgrade them to level 3. However, at level 3 you have 14 blocks of range and the archer tower shoots 3 arrows. On the other hand, at level 4 you have 15 blocks of range and the archer tower shoots 4 arrows. The difference is not only the 1 extra block of range but one more mob being targeted. That is why I upgrade to level 4 and not just level 3. When I say 4 arrows, this means that the tower is attacking 4 mobs at once. So, if you are only facing 1-3 mobs, then yes a level 3 archer will do just about as much damage as a level 4 archer. However, 4 or more mobs a level 4 archer will do significantly more damage than a level 3. Another interesting fact about archers is they do not shoot through artillery towers. However, they do shoot through ice and mage towers, and occasionally other archers, though it is relatively uncommon for an archer to shoot through another archer.
Ice Towers:
Ice towers are some of my personal favorite towers. The effects of ice do not stack (more ice next to each other doesn’t mean that the mobs are even slower) so you want to place them far enough apart so that the effect isn’t being wasted, but close enough together where they are almost always in ice. With the ice, I will go ahead and mention exp drying. This is a strategy where you make it so it takes the other team a long time to get their exp. Thus, they cannot get their goldmine upgrades as fast and cannot send stronger mobs as fast. This works because they get their exp when their mobs die. This picture below is both almost optimal ice placement for the maps demons, plus exp drying at its finest. In this picture, there is only one area of slight ice stacking, the 2 ice in the back closest to the castle are unfortunately unavoidable, and the area of overlap is small. The gains of the second ice are just too important not to have one there. In the very back there is a sample extended battery. If you are going to have a regular battery on this map there I would recommend 5 instead of four, and the 5 that are in between the quake and the ice. I like to extend the 2 or 3 on each side to make speed and regen have minimal effect on creepers (as in they can’t make it through).
Mage Towers:
Similar to ice, the effects of mage towers do not stack (more mage towers does not mean increased burn time or burn damage). Mage towers are a bit more interesting to talk about, if you look at the picture above you will notice that I only have one mage, and that the mobs are not always on fire. There are two purposes for this, if you have noticed, the mobs stay on fire after they pass out of the range of the mage towers, this time you want to maximize to get the most damage output of each mage tower. Second, the second time the mobs pass the mage tower it will guarantee the kill on zombies, cave spiders, and spiders.
Artillery Towers:
The Artillery towers are your bread and butter, they take out the wither, they take out 8 of the other mobs. Generally, you would like a bunch of these at the beginning and a few at the end to clean up from giants. And if you have enough of them they can take out a giant. Artillery need to be level 4 to do damage though, level 1 artillery do almost nothing. I will now discuss the battery. The battery is simply a quick term for saying 4 artilleries, 1 quake, 1 ice all level 4 on a critical point (A place that hits for more than one pass, generally like those depicted below). An Extended battery has about 4 to 8 more level 4 artillery. An example battery is shown with the picture below. (note that an actual battery has the sorcerer switched with a level 4 artillery, the sorcerer is there to prevent towers from being blown up by the wither)
This is another battery:
Poison Towers:
The Poison Towers are very interesting to discuss. They are the most expensive of the effect towers (the effect towers being ice, mage, quake) (also like the other effect towers the effect does not stack). I am not entirely sure on the entire effects of the poison towers. I do not think that poisoned mobs take more damage from other towers. The poison effect does more damage than the creepers regenerate. The effect also extends far beyond where the towers are. After the mobs are poisoned by a level 4 poison tower they stay poisoned for like 30-45 blocks after going out of range of the poison. Additionally, poison towers cannot attack through other towers. In a pro defense when there are at least 3 people on defense I would recommend two level 4 poison tower, when it is just 2 people doing defense It can be used, but I would recommend against it. I would not recommend more than three level 4 poison tower.
Sorcerer Towers:
The sorcerer towers do decent damage. However, they are just 50 coins cheaper than a necromancer tower with much less damage output than a necromancer tower. The reason to use sorcerer towers are solely on the fact that they target the wither while the necromancer tower rarely targets the wither. On top of the fact that the sorcerer towers target the wither, they also block the wither from destroying towers. One level 4 sorcerers stop the wither from destroying towers most of the time. If there are two level 4 sorcerer towers it almost guarantees that the wither will not be able to destroy a tower.
Zeus Towers:
Zeus towers will only target one mob at a time, and do significant damage. The only mob they will not target is cave spiders. They are superior to necromancer and sorcerer towers in the fact that they deal damage to flying mobs. They do about as much damage as a sorcerer tower, maybe more, maybe a little less, but significantly less than a necromancer tower. These are useful in the back next to the castle, and in critical spots where they will be in range to hit mobs many times.
Turret Towers:
Simply don’t use them end of story, archers are cheaper and do more damage. Turrets are out classed by Leach and Zeus Towers. Ymbmg95 has mentioned in almost every guide of his that they are bad and why, shouldn’t have to go over it. If cubecraft doubled or tripled their rate or arrow output or both then I may reconsider. Until then, just don’t use them.
Necromancer Towers:
I recommend placing them near artillery, ice and quake towers. Also, Necromancer towers need to be placed together because when they attack they slow the mob further, and if you have a lot of them the slow effect does stack if all the iron golems are all attacking the same mob, the mob basically becomes immobilized for a few seconds. Necromancer Towers are awesome against giants, other than that, not that great. However, Giants are enough of a threat to warrant the use of them. On another note, I recommend not placing them in multi hit areas or near stair cases. The iron golems tend to derp up and not do damage when you need them to. Also, level 1 necromancer towers and level 2 necromancer towers the iron golems are really derpy, but level 3 Necromancer towers are amazing. I recommend not putting them to close to the front cause then “Golem error” tends to happen. Basically, they don’t hit what they need to. However, they shouldn’t be too far in the back because you need some time to kill the magma cubes and slimes after the giants die.
Quake Towers:
These are seriously some of the most useful towers in the game, they make creeper slaying easy, they are good late game to kill droves of magmas and slimes after the giants fall. Like the other effect towers, they do not stack. More quake towers doesn’t mean more Stunning of the mobs. The quake towers are perfect to use with artillery and ice towers. On the cave map if you place a level 4 quake tower underneath the bridge then it does affect the mobs above, however it does not show the particles. It is a very interesting phenomenon.
Leach Towers:
These are the hardest to talk about, because on the one hand they are useful, but on the other hand leach towers are terrible. Leach towers have one purpose to go off. If they do not go off when you need it most, they were not worth it. In addition, the leach towers are the most expensive towers in the game, place them where they will be in use the longest and have the best chance of going off. There are two reasons to use leach towers. First, when your necromancer towers kill a giant or multiple of them then you can slow the magma cubes around the leach and the leach will go off multiple times taking them all out. However, I wouldn’t rely on this because the other team can make the leach less effective by throwing speed pots. The only other use for a leach tower and the only reason I personally would place one is for end game. Where the only way to get through the incredible defense is 48+ blaze or 12+ giants. When the leach will affect 48+ blaze at once and take a quarter of their health, then it was worth it. Or if the leach goes off 2 or 3 times on 36 magma cubes and takes all of them out, then it was worth it, but if your defense cannot handle 12 blaze and 4 giants, then I wouldn’t recommend a leach tower. Therefore, in 90% of the games I play I never place a leach. Because those games I win at Armageddon when you don’t need any leach towers. They will likely not send 48 blaze or 12 giants at Armageddon, and if they do record it and send me a link because I want to see it. Additionally, Leach towers cause crazy lag when they go off.
I will cap this off with an image of an ideal defense on an Original map, keep in mind that we each had several freeze and meteor pre-bought.
This is so close to perfectly optimal. I only disagree with one thing with this defense. The necromancer tower that is closest to the leach tower is too far away from the other necromancer towers. Ideally, you want your necromancer towers as close to each other as possible. However, there is a reason why he placed a necromancer tower there. The Necromancer tower fit perfectly in that spot. A few of the key highlights of the defense, and what could be attempted to get through this defense. Almost any given point of this defense aside from two corners have full ice coverage. There are 3 mage towers to make it more difficult for a cave yolo. There are archers and the occasional Zeus and leach to make blaze rushes very difficult. There is another battery in the back just in case if the “giant trailings” get to far and they are supporting them so well that the first battery and the leaches don’t take them out. There are pretty much only two things that can get through this defense. When you see a defense this optimal there will be defensive potions. Thus, you must plan your assault accordingly. Additionally, this defense cannot be broken by one person alone. There are 4 potential methods of breaking through this defense. The first being 24 blazes, this could be the easiest for you and a friend to send and support, any more than this and you risk the leach towers going off. You will need to concentrate speed while the blazes are going around the leach towers. And you will need to keep one person throwing regen everywhere else. Against the team that built this defense it would not take us out, however it does have a decent chance to touch the castle. The next option that could potentially work is a cave yolo, though it will likely not work if the team is as optimal as the defense. The next two options have a pretty good chance of touching the castle and potentially winning, however, they take absurd amounts of coins to pull off. The next option to take this defense out is simply overwhelming them with blazes. I mean sending around 100 blazes. You will basically just try to speed as many as you can to the castle and then throw regen when they ever make it. Honestly, I am not sure if we would stop around 100 blazes or not. Though we potentially could with the setup we had. The third option is sending so many giants at once that the necromancer towers can’t keep up. You will need at least 12 to achieve this, though if we start throwing meteor or Zeus rage, 12 won’t make it through. Thus, I recommend 20-24, not only will the necromancers not be able to keep up, defensive potions will have struggle to drop the giants before they get to the castle. Support the giants with regen as well as speed when the giants drop. This defense was made by 3 people.
Thank you for reading my Guide to Tower Defense. If you want to see another guide from me, please mention so in the comments and perhaps even give me a topic or general scenario you want me to discuss in an upcoming guide.
Hope to see you in a game some time!
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