My tower rankings

[rgp151]

I know this is way old and beat to death, but I figure I'll give it a shot anyway. I'm going to rank them not by "best" to "worst", but by how often I use them.

I'd say pretty much all teh towers can shine in certain situations, but some shine in common situations where others are very niche.

So, here is how I rank the "free" towers:

1) Elite Harassers
2) Spectral Mausoleum
3) Shadow Archers
4) Melting Furnace
5) Bone Flingers
6) Orc Shaman
7) Goblirangs
8 ) Orc Warriors Den
9 ) Infernal Mage
10) Dark Knights
11) Rocket Riders

The paid towers:

1) Wicked Sisters
2) Rotten Forest
3) Deep Devil's Reef
4) Shaolin Temple
5) Goblin War Zeppelin
6) Swamp Thing
7) Grim Cemetery
8) Ignis Altar
9) Blazing Gem

Overall top 5:
1) Elite Harassers
2) Spectral Mausoleum
3) Wicked Sisters
4) Rotten Forest
5) Bone Flingers
Honorable mention to:
6) Orc Shaman

It looks like a lot of people don't appreciate the Wicked Sisters, but I' say they are hands down to most distinctive and capable tower, but they can't be the backbone of most setups. You gotta have Harassers and often Mausoleums.

There are certainly maps where things like Orc Shamen shine, or even Goblirangs.

I've never really liked the Blazing Gem, which so many people seem to love.

If I were playing on mobile and had to pay for towers, I think the only ones I would really pay for would be Wicked Sisters and Rotten Forest. Those two really can make a significant impact on gameplay. The rest are more nice to have in a few niche situations.

I've beaten the whole game on Veteran using only free towers and free heroes (which basically means Asra). What was most difficult to do without was definitely Wicked Sisters. Well I guess if any one paid thing made the most difference it was probably not having one of the dragon heroes, but in terms of towers is was not having Wicked Sisters.

[rgp151]

In terms of combos I'd say probably the single best combo is simply Rotten Forest + Elite Harassers. That will stop pretty much anything. When both are fully upgraded pretty much only mass flyers can get through, or things with really high physical armor.

[Daan-B]

I know that debating things like tower rankings probably isn't productive, so instead of nitpicking your list or anything like that it might be wiser to just give you my own list.

But, i'll actually add what role I use the tower for and why I place them where I do. My placements shall be determined based on the role they serve when I use them and how often I use them for this role. My parameter is basicly frequency minus any bias I'm aware of
(for instance i use rotton forest a lot because I like it, even though I think it is weaker then some other towers)

In any case my ratings are contingent on how I employ these towers, and are ultimately simply a subjective opinion.

The roles:
Archer: Basic fast shooting tower for dps and magic resistant enemies.
Magic: Tower for killing armored enemies
Insta-killer: Tower for delivering insta-kills
Anti-air: Towers that are exceptional against flying enemies
Stalling: Towers that stall or slow enemies well.
Artillary: deals well with multiple enemies at once
Grouper: groups up enemies into pools that are easier to dispatch for artillary.
*many towers have multiple roles

Rankings:
0) tower / primary role / secondary role / note

1) shadow archers / archer / insta-killer / my go to archer almost every time
2) deep devil's reef / mage / anti-air / a true tier 4 tower, weak at tier 1 and 2
3) dark knights / stalling / insta-killer / use at tier 1 or 4 for respective roles
4) wicked sisters / mage / insta-killer / true dmg + best insta-kill tower in the game.
5) Ignis altar / artillary / grouping / use with stall or at tier 4 with the true fire ability

6) shaolin temple / anti-air/ artillary / best tower against groups of flying enemies in the game, very versatile
7) rotton forest / stalling / artillary / tier 4 + upgrades for insane group stalling (also slows)
8) orc shaman / mage / artillary / great magic dmg against groups at tier 4
9) elite harrassers / archer / stalling / not great for stalling, but good enough

At this point there is no point continuing the list as there are no towers I wouldn't replace in my set-up with the ones listed above. I will explain my grievances with these towers instead, which shall be done in alphabetical order.

bone flingers: I dislike it's targeting, good dps tho
blazing gem: I dislike it's targeting, good dps tho
goblin war zeppelin: I dislike it's cost, good dps tho
goblirangs: It relies to heavily on stalling and has inconsistent/slow abilities.
grim cemetery: inconsistent, terrible dps
Infernal mage: decent mage, bad abilities
melting furnace: I find it's damage and stall underwhelming, was better then rotton forest before the rotton forest got buffed though
rocket riders: worst tower in the game
sandworm: omitted, I didn't get the dlc
specters mausoleum: great stall with it's abilities, dislike it's damage output
swamp thing: to slow, shots often land after the enemy is killed, thus missing.

I should probably mention my general build:
shadow archers + barracks (knights or harassers) + 2 mages (sisters, reef, shamans) + wildcard (most of the time rotton forest, cuz of bias)

Anyway make of this post whatever you want.

[rgp151]

Yeah, reasonable. I got the DLC and it's not that hard, but it does favor different towers. For sure the Mausoleum is not needed in the DLC. The big issue is that the DLC relies on lots of smaller units, but also not massed units like Draugrs, just kind of lots of little guys running around all the time.

So the Ignis Alter performs better in the DLC, which is nice cause I like that tower. Also the Shaolin Temple is better in the DLC, as are the Goblirangs. In fact, Goblirangs are pretty good in the DLC since there are a lot of maps with narrow paths.

But in the non-DLC massed Mausoleums can dominate many maps.

Swamp Thing works well on several maps in the DLC as well due to its stun and long range. It's particularly effective against the Genies.

I've never been a fan of Dark Knights. On several maps I've gone back and tried to use them and they never work as well as alternatives. Usually either Mausoleums or Rotten Forests or just more Elite Harassers works better.

With the exception of a few maps that pretty much require magic, you can beat most maps with just Rotten Forests and Elite Harassers. In fact if you use a magic hero you can probably beat them all with just those two things except the ones with the Ghosts.

[Miathan]

People don't love blazing gem, they rate it highly because it's stupidly strong. I don't know if you have the Hammerhold DLC, but a blazing gem tower can kill an elephant all by itself even on impossible, and one blazing gem + margosa can kill the final boss on his spawn point, also on impossible.

[rgp151]

Originally posted by Miathan:

People don't love blazing gem, they rate it highly because it's stupidly strong. I don't know if you have the Hammerhold DLC, but a blazing gem tower can kill an elephant all by itself even on impossible, and one blazing gem + margosa can kill the final boss on his spawn point, also on impossible.

Verified :)

But as usual, its still not the best way to go about it. I haven't found a single map where Blazing Gem is a good tower to use. Sure its playable, but there are always better options.

For one thing Wicked Sisters does more damage and is a lot more versatile. On that map Ignis Alters up front instead of Gems, with Wicked Sisters works much better. Kills the Elephants and the Boss faster. The Ignis Alters give you the unit needed to battle the Boss and keep in occupied. The +100% damage and the slow are just too good.

[Isaac]

I think this is the single worst ranking I have ever seen of this game

[rgp151]

I underestimated the Ignis Altar. Its a really strong tower actually. It is for sure the best boss killer. For every boss fight in the game, Wicked Sisters + Ignis Altar is by far the fastest way to kill the boss. I also just beat Into the Mountains easily using just Ignis Altar and nothing else. That map is one I sort of use as a benchmark for maps with non-flyers. It seems that Ignis Altar does both physical and magic damage, or at least it can kill Ghosts. The boss for Frozen Throne goes down in seconds to Wicked Sisters + Ignis Altar.

[Daan-B]

Originally posted by rgp151:

I underestimated the Ignis Altar. Its a really strong tower actually. It is for sure the best boss killer. For every boss fight in the game, Wicked Sisters + Ignis Altar is by far the fastest way to kill the boss. I also just beat Into the Mountains easily using just Ignis Altar and nothing else. That map is one I sort of use as a benchmark for maps with non-flyers. It seems that Ignis Altar does both physical and magic damage, or at least it can kill Ghosts. The boss for Frozen Throne goes down in seconds to Wicked Sisters + Ignis Altar.

It does not deal magical damage, it has the artillary property. which allows it to ingnore a portion of armor (50 or 25%, i forgot), thus dealing more dmg to armored dmg and dealing dmg to ghosts. I am only making this post because magic resistance does not reduce the dmg of ignis altar, so it's not a split between physical and magical dmg.

[rgp151]

Got it. So Ghosts have 100% physical armor, but this allows some damage to get through. Got it. And when combined with Single Extinction its able to do even more.