Wasp turret good or not?

[SAKURA]

I unlocked the Wasp turrets and i use them once so far and it was in a horde mission but it was already easy since i had Lucifers. Otherwise what are there advantage and disadvantage to using them? The tooltip mention they might attract zombies but they don't attack them. So can i like place them infront of walls?

[snuggleform]

Wasps are quite affordable in normal missions, and do an excellent job of plugging annoying little holes you have when you're first starting up that you would normally try to plug with like 3-4 rangers or whatever you use like soldiers. It is a superior option because it's way stronger than a few dinky units for a cheap upkeep cost (2 gold, 1 energy. That's right there's no food upkeep so it's a heck of a lot better than stationing snipers/soldiers in the early game). Yes there's an upfront cost you have to get to a stone shop and dump 900 gold into researching it, but it gives you way more peace of mind than your little range ♥♥♥♥♥ ever will and costs no food unlike the units above ranger.

If you have played war3 then you can think of them as an orcish or human tower, totally usable and great for cheap defense. There really is no comparison to them for their cost range. Of course you want shocks or lucis for true swarms, but again they beat the crap out of trying to use little patrol groups of units.

I've heard that you can use their "inanimate" property as a screen for your shock towers against enemies that your shock towers can't one shot as long as you set them to highest priority target.

[Dukenukem117]

Do they take workers? I forget.

For isolated point defense, they are good so long as you have the iron. For long stretches of walls where you dont want to line with ballistas, they are much more cost effective cause of the low upkeep. But they are mainly only good at stopping the patrol groups.

When they die, do they get repaired or are they entirely dead?

[snuggleform]

They don't require workers!! I listed the upkeep cost precisely in the previous post but I'll list it again: 2 gold, and 1 energy. You read that damn right. No food, no workers.

I think they are entirely dead if they get attacked but that is just like the other towers like shock. They don't get infected like shocks do, however.

And I mentioned before of couree they are not dedicated anti huge swarmy things, but they are great prior to that, and I've heard they actually do have uses on venom levels alongside shocks. Their single target dps is quite adequate and I think maybe only the sniper can rival it. If you don't have food or workers to spare, then why not add more safety/dps even somewhere in your main defense?

[Dukenukem117]

Do they match venoms in range?

[snuggleform]

I don't know what a venom's range is because I'm not that far yet, but the wasp sight range is 8 which I assume is equal to their attack range. This is significantly higher than a veteran range who only has a range of 6.5, so only snipers can try to rival its range/dps but again those units have food/worker upkeep.

I heard from another post that you can use them as anti venoms by sticking them in front of your shocks; they don't naturally atttract aggro so you set them to highest priority and it works? I haven't tried myself and I would still put walls in front of them because zombies will attack them if they are in range even though they don't prefer to walk to them if there are other targets in the general direction of their attack.

Another small comment I would make is: why not just use them as filler between your shock towers? Shock towers have to be placed 3 spaces apart, so why not stick more dps in there? Obviously the very front couple rows should be walls and you want to accomodate some path out of your tower defense, but I really wouldn't mind that kind of extra firepower helping focus out high priority targets, and they are way tankier than normal units.

[Andrewbh2003]

Originally posted by wsc150:

I don't know what a venom's range is because I'm not that far yet, but the wasp sight range is 8 which I assume is equal to their attack range. This is significantly higher than a veteran range who only has a range of 6.5, so only snipers can try to rival its range/dps but again those units have food/worker upkeep.

I heard from another post that you can use them as anti venoms by sticking them in front of your shocks; they don't naturally atttract aggro so you set them to highest priority and it works? I haven't tried myself and I would still put walls in front of them because zombies will attack them if they are in range even though they don't prefer to walk to them if there are other targets in the general direction of their attack.

Another small comment I would make is: why not just use them as filler between your shock towers? Shock towers have to be placed 3 spaces apart, so why not stick more dps in there? Obviously the very front couple rows should be walls and you want to accomodate some path out of your tower defense, but I really wouldn't mind that kind of extra firepower helping focus out high priority targets, and they are way tankier than normal units.

venoms have the exact same range as soldiers so whatever range a soldier has is the same as venoms

it did not used to be that way but venoms got nerfed HARD in the past

[snuggleform]

Well soldiers have baseline 5 range, so yeah wasps outrange that by 3 tiles. An upgraded soldier has 6 range, which is still outranged by a wasp.

[Andrewbh2003]

Originally posted by wsc150:

Well soldiers have baseline 5 range, so yeah wasps outrange that by 3 tiles. An upgraded soldier has 6 range, which is still outranged by a wasp.

so yeah venoms have 5 range "Idk i never look at the exact stats"

[Dukenukem117]

I don't think wasps have 8 range. Their preview radius is small. My guess is 4-5.

[RandomDude2018]

Wasps are amazing and i'd say game breaking too with the way they can be placed (next to each other). Zombies attack the wasps too - the tooltip is misleading.

[Sarnith]

Wasps are totally worth it! I'm on my second playthrough of the campaign (Did 100% first time, now running on Hard, 200%). They make a lot of noise though, so be careful where you choose to place them earlier on. Though supporting units or other towers such as shocking towers, it's quite a sight to behold. Also, as much as I love lucifers, the tech path I took this time which was shocking towers -> Wasps seemed a LOT more streamlined and easier to play with. Just my 2 cents, but having even a single wasp can make a huge difference in holding a position... especially from the random runner mini waves that roam onto the map to attack you.

[snuggleform]

Originally posted by fatlazyhomer:

I don't think wasps have 8 range. Their preview radius is small. My guess is 4-5.

I think you're right, but least it means they're on par with venom. I heard venom doesn't prefer to attack them anyways so if you place them in front of your other stuff then they shred venoms.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by RandomDude2018:

Zombies attack the wasps too - the tooltip is misleading.

I could be wrong, but the way I understand the tooltip is that zombies ignore it until it starts firing, not that it's ignored completely forever.

I'm not sure how useful this is, but I read something somewhere (sorry, forget where) about how it can be useful insofar as that they won't get attacked while building. Very situational... but... I guess it's something?

[HappyFir3]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

Originally posted by RandomDude2018:

Zombies attack the wasps too - the tooltip is misleading.

I could be wrong, but the way I understand the tooltip is that zombies ignore it until it starts firing, not that it's ignored completely forever.

I'm not sure how useful this is, but I read something somewhere (sorry, forget where) about how it can be useful insofar as that they won't get attacked while building. Very situational... but... I guess it's something?

Wasps are ignored if the zombies have something else to be distracted by. So, say, a line of snipers behind a line of wasps. The wasps won't be targeted as the zombies go for the snipers.

This was SUPER useful on the spitter-only mission, and made it kinda trivial (only used wasps from train on nightmare).

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by HappyFir3:

Wasps are ignored if the zombies have something else to be distracted by. So, say, a line of snipers behind a line of wasps. The wasps won't be targeted as the zombies go for the snipers.

This was SUPER useful on the spitter-only mission, and made it kinda trivial (only used wasps from train on nightmare).

Ah, very interesting. Thank you for the clarification.