My rankings

[Bobby Dodge]

Fist let me say I am a huge fan of this game! Tops my tower defense list. Also I am no pro player. These are just my thoughts on tower/abilities etc. Mostly for my own memory and reference. I have about 30 hours in the game, half the achievements, highest wave: 143, highest diff: 11.

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Towers from my least favorite to most.

Least liked:
Berserker: I have tried a few times. I simply think it takes too much healing without dealing enough damage.

Ion Cannon: Only tried a couple of times. Does too little damage, has to be manually used.

Shield generator/Healer: Both these towers need a lot of upgrades to be meh.

Medium liked:
Boomblaster: every other aoe tower is better.

Freezer: Good, but needs a lot up upgrades. More useful if you reduce spawner sites.

Disruptor Tower: Second favorite passive tower. Again even more usefull if you reduce spawner sites.

Sniper: I'm torn on this tower. I do like it, but think it needs too many rare upgrades to be an elite killer.

Radiator: Favorite passive tower. Needs reduced spawner sites for best use. Also needs rare upgrades. Some mobs are immune even if used with a disrupter tower.

Healray: doesnt have that large of a range for that being its advertised advantage. But does allow you to heal from red to green. Healer tower, and heal ability do not.

Hammer: Good high damage tower, I skip for some others typically though.

Repeater: Crappy damage, but common upgrades easy to get from start and build on.

Most Liked:
Executioner: Better than disruptor tower.

Lightning: needs uncommon and rare upgrades.

Sunbeam: Better than repeater.

Melter: I'll take this tower nearly every run.

Rocket pod: it slows, and has great range. Take almost every run.

Shuriken: Best aoe tower.

Cleaver: My favorite tower. Doesnt kill enemies. But in combo with any aoe tower really sings. Weirdness about tower: split enemies can have full health bar.

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Abilities:

Slow: its fine but meh.

Stun: better than slow.

Frenzy: good with certain builds, like sunbeam or repeater.

Explosive: Havent used much but its ok.

Heal: crappy but needed in higher difficulites if you dont get shield.

Radiate: I debate between this ability and tower. Tower can get upgrades, while ability can cast after mobs spawn adds.

Shield: Best ability, will take nearly every run.

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Modules:

Less is more: scam, dont see great returns.

All endless: too small to invest.

Panopticon: with rocket pod, or sniper, or well placed walls, this is basically useless.

Audacious: more boss levels doesnt increase score enough to take.

Reckoning: bigger score simply isnt worth it. Maybe if you take a bunch, but I've yet to seen it offered more than twice in a run.

Roll the dice: Usually something worth taking.

Salvage: Random is random, I usually pass.

Something from nothing/Take a break: meh.

Tinkerer: modules are offered enough as is.

Treasure hunter: hard to tell if you get good return.

Common stacks: good for endless, otherwise useless.

Rare stacks: can be very powerfull if lucky.

Masonry: helps maze.

Hardened Core: helps in later waves.

Nanobots/autoshields: good but very small amount.

Uncommon Stacks: if I take a stack upgrade its this one.

Reach: Good, would like the amount to be higher.

Refine: more damage is always good, but tower specific upgrade is typically better. Than small upgrade to multiple towers.

Quicken: I like speed over damage, but again tower upgrade is better.

[ehmprah]

Aw that's great! Thanks for you thoughts about the game – I'll review those and maybe finetune them as needed. I'm very glad you like the game :-)

[39773]

TLDR: Salvage, something from nothing and take a break = OP. Less is more makes it even more OP. Tinkerer, treasure hunter + roll the dice lets you build the salvage combo faster. Sniper, executioner, lightning, radiator, freezer, and disruptor towers will see you singing through all 25 difficulties and achievements.

This physically hurt to read lol.

Without fail I'll grab salvage, something from nothing and take a break the moment I see them. Its a combination too good to ignore. It doesnt matter if the upgrade is random, it's a guaranteed upgrade and a free wall with each skip, thats 2 upgrades and 2 walls each wave. The random rewards from salvage also don't discriminate between common, uncommon or rare, it's the same odds for all

Tinkerer + treasure hunter helps build the combo faster, choice overload, optional paralysis and roll the dice also help, once I have all of the above I'll grab less is more when it comes up, thats an additional upgrade and wall per wave making it effectively 6 rewards after each wave. By the time you're in waves 40+ your towers should be fully upgraded with enough walls to fully stack at least 3 towers, you'll be grabbing the stack modules just so you have something to upgrade :p

As for towers. The best combo by far is the Sniper, Executioner, Lightning, Freezer, Radiator and Disruptor. You want to build your maze in such a way so there's only 1 entrance (go to the store page, the first picture next to the vid is the best maze imo, it just needs an additional wall on the corner of the core to keep all mobs 2 squares away from the core) Place the radiator at the start of the maze, the freezer and disruptor in the middle, lightning and executioner next to your core and the sniper can either be placed in the middle or next to your core, whichever you prefer (I build away from my core just enough for it to cover the whole maze)

The sniper will kill 95% of the mobs and the executioner will destroy the rest, the debuffs from the radiator, freeze, lightning and disruptor all boost the damage of the executioner and will also become more vital as you progress through the difficulties.

Apart from achiev's like the pacifist, common or uncommon etc the above let me 100% the game and I cannot stress enough about how OP the salvage combo is, it's just a pain building towards it but that said, once you do get it you'll be playing on easy mode.

:Edit:

Whilst I hate to add to what is already a huge wall of text I just remembered the Audacity/reckoning comment.

Audacity will help you get the modules/salvage combo faster and the added score also equals more exp to get mastery points faster. Audacity and reckoning are also vital for getting a decent score in the daily runs.

You mentioned never seeing more than 2 reckonings per game, all I can think is that you dont have mastery 2 maxed out or perhaps you're picking too many towers too soon effectively flooding the upgrade pool with too many choices?