[WIP] Protean Shift - Interesting Towers

A quick introduction to the useful towers you can use in the post-Protean Shift content.

You can always find the most up to date version here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_UrhKLDY4EqfexBcz5TaSPTyqZOVShYLD8gTOYK8C7M/edit?usp=sharing

Introduction

Hello people. Some may remember me from my Dryad Guide, others may have never heard of me and… well actually it's either one or the other.

So, why this “guide”?

1. I often see people asking how they should build this or that defense. So I though about writing a guide that could help them in this regard. The idea was to showcase towers individually, giving them the most optimal setup I can muster in a general situation. Of course, in a given build, some variants may or more likely will be more useful than those suggested here but I'll try to cover all the main options.

2. I'm tired of seeing Dryads and WM's everywhere. By helping people discover alternatives, I hope that it will give them the motivation to try other things.

3. I need to do something while I wait for these waves to end.

Now that the why is out of the way, what do I intend this guide to be?

AKA, what is this guide?

• Something of a starting point as to what towers are currently useful in most builds. As much as possible, I'll only use categories of defenses when I'm talking about the possible synergies so as to not influence the readers in their choices of builds.

• A mix and match kind of thing. All the towers I showcase here work well mostly independently of the build they are used in. So you can pretty much pick some here and there and end up with a working build. If you are aiming for a fully functional and synergized build however, you'll have to work out the kinks by yourself.

• Provide pointers as to how to build and use the towers: shards and mods setups, placement, etc.

Basically, it's a guide about Interesting Towers. Yeah. I suppose the title was enough.

Disclaimer

Before we start, a little disclaimer.

I don't pretend to know everything. Most of the content in this guide is either gathered through my observations, experimentation and other people's input. However, a player's resource being a finite thing, I cannot test things as thoroughly as I'd like to. For this reason, I may miss some subtleties or options so feel free to tell me if I'm missing something.

Also, this guide is about individual defenses, not builds. Therefore, there may be more efficient variants and there will be more efficient variants in a given builds. That's what synergies are all about after all.

Finally, this guide is written early in the Protean Shift release, so there will be balance patches in the futures. In order to have a somewhat reliable guide, I'll try to write things in such a way that they'll remain true unless major changes happen. As for gear, if the meta were to change, simply follow it.

Feel free to contact me on Steam or on Discord @Fuzen#6224 if you want to discuss something about this guide or have a suggestion, etc.

How To Use & General Notes

About the Shards & Mods Setups

The current meta uses Defense Rate shard + Defense Rate mod to max out defense rate. You can achieve the max rate with only one of these if you are using a gilded Rate shard or a max roll Rate mod. Also, some towers (Harpies or Hailstorm for instance) only need the default Defense Rate shard to max out.

Any time you don't need both of these, you can use the free slot for more DPS. For this purpose, you will mostly use Destruction, Mass Destruction or Vampiric Empowerment. As for mods, it will be either Controller, Anti-X, X Boom or Range unless specified otherwise.

Unless stated otherwise, you can replace any DPS shard or fill any empty slot with Mass Destruction, Destruction or Vampiric Empowerment (in this order of efficiency). If you were to already have Mass Destruction elsewhere and still have a free slot after Destruction and VE, your choices include Defense Critical Damage, Deadly Strikes and Power Transfer*.

* This one will most likely lower your DPS unless you have an unhealthy amount of crit damage.

Deadly Strikes can be replaced by Vicious Strikes but most of the time you will obtain very similar values with both. (It differs from defense to defense however so you should try it out by yourself.)

Finally, in any defense when I recommend Tenacity, you can replace it with a DPS alternative if you can build around the Cyborks. Remember however that Tenacity will allow you to use these defenses in more situations and is the “beginner friendly” option. In some cases, even if you can build around the Cy's, it's still recommended to use it because having that one defense deactivated may cause a lot of problems to your build so you may want to spare yourself that headache. Though, a non-maxed Tenacity may not be that useful in this situation, so you may want to use a Range mod which allows more placement options.

The same goes for Deadly Strikes and Vicious Strikes but for most defenses Vicious Strikes is usually useless if not stacked on top of Deadly Strikes. (It differs from defense to defense however so you may want to test it out yourself.) In the case where you'd reach max rate with a perfect Rate mod or with a gilded Rate shard, replace the other with more DPS.

About the Values used in this Guide

All the values used in this guide assume close-to-cap C7 relics. That means, at least 51k DP relics. For the sake of my own sanity, I'll do with what I can get for the secondary stats in the case of a defense using Vampiric Empowerment. Ascension will be around 100 in DP, 0 in DH and maxed Range Gambit when applicable.

Shards will be fully upgraded but not gilded (since most people won't have gilded shards for all their defenses) and mods will be below perfect (for the very same reason).

About the Tags

In this guide, I'm dividing the defenses in three main categories: [META], [GOOD] and [GIMMICK].

• [META] means that a defense is top tier in the current state of the game. It doesn't take its popularity into account, only its potential.

• [GOOD] means that a defense is… well, um, good. This classification is in comparison to the [META] defenses. So if a tower uses this tag, it means that it's very potent but not utterly broken like the ones in the [META] tier.

• [GIMMICK] means that a defense possesses a limited uses since its impact is limited or requires in opposition to adapt your build to fit it in. In any case, these defenses are far from worthless, but you'll have to think about if and how you will use them.

The criteria I'm examining to decide in which category I put the defenses I'm showcasing include, but are not limited, to the following:

• Damage Potential: what kind of output a defense can reach at T1~T5, its upgrade scaling, how efficient its damage are and basically anything directly related to damage.

• CC: a tower that has more to bring to the table than just DPS will rank better (unless said DPS is absolutely broken and outweights the lack of CC).

• Usability: this is probably the most important factor. It includes everything from the defense type to the way it delivers its damage and includes everything in-between like its DU cost, its maintenance upgrade-wise, range, range type, etc. Basically, anything related to how a tower is used.

[META] Poison Dart Tower

Basics

Some of the more veteran players will remember the PDT/SA/PB meta. Well, it's back. At least, PDT is back. With a revenge.

What makes this defense interesting?

• Spreads poison with extreme reliability. Poison counters Controlled Burn and primes for Controller mod, giving any defense used with it a free damage boost if using said mod.

• Explosive Poison combined with Melee Boom provide an impressive source of AoE for nothing else than 40 DU. These AoE damage only gets more devastating if you can group up mobs with some kind of CC before delivering the finishing blow for a massive chain reaction.

• Can target ground as well as air. Set back on a ledge, it will become partially or fully an AA duty tower, making it just as powerful for air Controlled Burn as it is for its ground counterpart. Its AoE potential also allows it to deal well with massive groups of flyers than another AA would have a hard time to manage.

• 4500 cone range give many placement options but will require a long straight line for full efficiency. It will be as useful in your killzone for the chain reaction greatness as it would be at the beginning of a lane to weaken things.

• As an AoE tower, it shouldn't be upgraded unless absolutely needed. And with its high base DPS, PDT can achieve that - reaching 1b on heavy lanes by the end of a match without requiring a single upgrade. But once again, with Explosive Poison scaling off DP, it's doubly advantageous to upgrade this one if you need more AoE damage.

Shards

• Explosive Poison: this shard is part of what makes PDT so great. Any enemy killed while poisoned will explode and deal 150% tower damage to nearby enemies and spread poison, allowing to repeat the process with any secondary kill.
• Destruction: since Explosive Poison scales off DP, you'll want as much DP as possible. You may even want to use Mass Destruction to that end, since PDT will doubly benefit from the increased DP.

You also have the option to go double DP shards and forsake Defense Rate, but you'd give up on some precious direct damage in doing so. But if you happen to have another way to initiate the chain reaction, that could be a viable alternative. And of course if you have a maxed Rate mod, that will be your best bet.

Mods

• Melee Boom: exploding things are great. But you know what's even better? Things that die, explode and then explode again. The reason for choosing Melees here is that PDT targets based on proximity and doesn't pierce so the most likely things to get poisoned are Melees.

• Piercing: you don't want your projectiles reflected or absorbed, and it counts twice with PDT. First, piercing will allow a counter to Controlled Burn geodes, but that's not all. A low roll Piercer Servo will reduce the damage of the projectile - but only the projectile. Poison will always do 100% of its damage regardless of your roll.

Usage

Used for a killzone with this setup, PDT is your typical backline tower. Most of the time, you'll find it far behind the rest of your Towers/Auras/Whatever thanks to its 4500 cone range.

Ideally, you'll want a straight line to exploit as much of this range as you can and the efficiency drops sharply when you can't do that.

But there's a counter when this happens. CC's. Use whatever CC you want to keep things in place as long as needed: each second things don't move is both time for damage to ramp up. And if you have a way to stop the frontline only, it allows mobs to stack neatly for more exploding chain reactions greatness.

PDT is a very vulnerable tower, so it can't take much of a beating. Take care to place it out of the way and mobs will mostly ignore it. As for Kobolts, you will have to find a way to deal with them before they become a problem.

If you want to put it at the start of a lane to weaken the mobs, remember that doing so in C7 is a bad idea because of the Kobolts. Otherwise, it should be a safe thing to do - but it's still less useful than in a killzone.

Conclusion

PDT is a great tower that can find a spot in any kind of build thanks to the way it works. And depending to the rest of the build, its efficiency can skyrocket. Just make sure that things are poisoned before you kill them and you're set. Besides, it's pretty much the best counter to Controlled Burn and the best way to prime for Controller.

[META] Weapon Manufacturer

Basics

This one has always had a pretty much permanent slot in the game meta thanks to the fact that it doesn't require any upgrade. And an avalanche of nerfs failed to change this fact. Now with its mods, it's even stronger.

It's not only a convenient defense though - it boasts an impressive DPS even with a single node with a staggering 1m DPS with the recommended setup.

What makes this defense interesting?

• Doesn't require any upgrade and, as such, is stronger than any T1 AoE defense to compensate. By T2 or T3 most other AoE towers will outDPS it, but since AoE defenses are better left at T1, it's not an issue and simply goes to make WM even more convenient.
  
• Nodes extend from the base, so you can easily buff it together with your other towers by placing it near your Power/Destructive Pylon and have the nodes reach the limit of your ranged towers unlike auras like Fire Aura or Fissures of Embermount for instance.
  
• With Shocking Revelation mod, it will stun mobs which is very useful against… everything. And it includes Cy's: with the 1120 range provided by Deadly Strikes, it can hit them before they can initiate their EMP. (They can still stun it if the stun from WM doesn't proc in time though.)
  
• Thanks to its base DPS and the absence of upgrade, it makes for an efficient defense for quick-building.

Shards

This one is very special as to what shards to use. Defense Rate and Deadly Strikes are pretty much mandatory to benefit fully from WM.

However, the third shard is up to you: Destruction or Mass Destruction allows for a massive DPS. Vicious Strikes brings its range to around 2000 so you can benefit from the stunning mod even further.

There is also a third option - which I simply really like. Destructive Pylon. WM is a node-type defense. This means that each node can relay the effects of Destructive Pylon. (The base doesn't seem to do anything.) And in turn, it means that you can buff both your towers and your auras and traps with WM depending on how you use it. All that for the cost of not using Mass Destruction. But if you're reading this guide, you probably have it on PDT by now, don't you? Still. You lose around 500k (1/6th) of DPS if you're using Destructive Pylon over Mass Destruction. A good tradeoff if you can exploit it.

Still, remember that Destructive Pylon is the inferior option - WM is better off receiving the buffing than doing it because of the fact that it can't be upgraded and, therefore has a limited ways to have increased DPS. Also, even if the base can't buff with Destructive Pylon, you can buff the base and it will affect all the nodes. That also means that you can for instance buff WM's base with Power Pylon and use WM's nodes to buff your frontline auras.

Mods

• Shocking Revelation: adds a moderate amount of damage and more importantly - stuns. Listen people. This one will get nerfed pretty soon because 5 sec is really OP. Thus we'll just say that it stuns and leave it at that. Now, why does it matter? Because stun is a hard CC that can affect any mob including berserkers. It also interrupts the mobs. This means that it's very effective against cyborks: they need to stop for a second to use their EMP. Usually, this time is enough to stun them.
  
• Tenacity: most of the time, you'll use a 3-nodes WM. (Altough 1 node is still around 1m DPS for 60 DU which is a LOT. Consider it when building.) Because of its cost, it means that it's more than 50% of a lane's DU. You really don't want this one to get disabled, so make yourself a favor, and use Tenacity.

Usage

If you're only using a single node, simply put it between your towers and the baddies. Simple as that.

If you're using two or three nodes…


You'll want to place the nodes horizontally from the direction the mobs are coming, so when they are in the range of WM, all the nodes will hit them. It gets even more important with Shocking Revelation since only the first node would damage them if they get stunned right away otherwise.

Since we're using Tenacity, there is no other consideration to take when placing it. Just remember to use it as your “frontline aura”: if cyborks try to hit anything, it has to be this one. For instance, putting an LSA or an FA in front of WM would seriously hamper the effectiveness of both… but you can of course put an LSA out of the way for instance.

Conclusion

Because of its modulable cost, WM can be used as a main defense in a lane, or as part (60~90/200 DU) of a more elaborate build. You can use it as both a DPS or a CC tower, or even a buff tower which makes it very versatile.

Just don't get too used to the OP stun. It will be nerfed.

[META] Lightning Strikes Aura

Basics

This one is less popular than the rest on the meta tier, but I'd feel guilty to put it anywhere else given how good it is.


Basically, built correctly, LSA is a 20 DU tower that can deal a lot of single and multiple target damage, deal with ground as well as air and wreck even bosses. This low cost coupled to its high effectiveness makes it a powerful defense in any build and in any role.

What makes this defense interesting?

• LSA is a 20 DU, single target, aura. This gives it an incredible scaling per upgrade, multiplying its damage by five from T1 to T5. Because of that, you can give it a more or less important role depending on how much you want to upgrade it.
  
• For 20 DU, reliably reaches at least 300m damage by the end of a match at T1 and up to 2b at T5 depending on how it is placed and the density of the lanes.
  
• Technically a single target tower, but can become extremely potent as an AoE aura with Melee Boom and enough damage per shot to reliably kill what it hits.
  
• Doesn't require any kind of LoS and will hit anything inside its radius.
  
• Huge range allowing for an easy buffing with Pylon while retaining most of its usefulness. And placed outside of buff range, it can cover a lot of different situations.
  
• Can quickly and easily unstuck most stuck lanes (cf. Game Ogre) thanks to its range, damage and low DU cost.

Shards

• Deadly Strikes: one of the selling point of LSA is its massive range. Thanks to that, it's very effective against air, but also for lane duty. One or two per lane, properly upgraded to at least T2, will make a significant difference. I'm personally using Vicious Strikes on this one since it gives 400 more range compared to Deadly Strikes, making it even more useful.
  
• Destruction: you could go Destruction + Mass Destruction and reach some extremely high damage, but you'd lose the benefits from the high range added by Deadly Strikes. If you plan to use it for lane duty and have a lot of CC in your build, it's an option that you can keep in mind though. You can also place it at your blockade if you're going down this road. Still, however good LSA is, putting Mass Destruction on this one is a bit of a waste since it already kills most things in one or two hits so you should settle on Destruction/gilded Destruction.
  
• Destructive Pylon is an option too, but you're better off using your Pylon or something else to buff LSA.

Mods

• Melee Boom: this mod is what turns LSA into an AoE tower. Thanks to its high damage, it will most likely kill what it hits, and with a 1s rate, it will happen often enough to clear or help clear out all the weakest mobs - leaving only the most resilient alive - only for them to be dealt with by LSA since it's its main role after all.
  
• Defense Range: this one is actually optional. I personally like more range because it allows more possibilities. But you could just as well use a +Crit Damage mod (it works really well with such a high damage defense). If you can take advantage of it, Controller is an even better choice. Or Tenacity so you don't have to put it out of the way. But given its massive range, it's easy to do to begin with.

Usage

LSA is easy to place. You want it to reach as much of a lane as possible but more importantly, you want it to reach the point where the mobs will remain the longer. That is, at your CC's or at your blockade. Try to strike the right balance between those.

If you are using two LSA's per lane, you want them to overlap in such a way that the overlap area covers as much of the lane as possible and, of course, your CC/Blockade.

For air lanes, you will most likely need two LSA's, usually upgraded to tier 2. In air/ground lanes, you may want to use 3 or 4 since they will attack both air and ground and don't use a priority system like say, Nimbuses.

Remember than despite Melee Boom, to get the most out of LSA you will want another tower to help the cleaning so LSA can focus on its main role.

Finally, LSA gets exponentially better as you upgrade it, because the more certainly they can kill with a hit, the more damage through Melee Boom. (And, in turn, the less the wasted hits on low-HP threats.) If you're using more than one in a lane, consider which one(s) you will upgrade the most.

Conclusion

It's great and versatile! It's 20 DU! It's basically free! Just use it already. Seriously.

Just in case you need the extra bit of convincing.

[META] Earthshatter Tower

Basics

With Protean Shift, Earthshatter Tower became more efficient than ever. The reason? Earth Toss. Without it, Earthshatter would only be a high tier tower. But this shard adds CC and AoE to said CC and damage*.

*Actually, only the main target takes the full damage. The secondary targets only take something like 1/7th of that.

But let's talk a bit more about that CC. It's a hard-CC like stun or electrocute for instance. That means that even berserkers aren't immune! And as if it was not enough, Knock Up is a fixed-duration CC just like Electrocute. That means that even in MP with 4 people, it will retain 100% of its usefulness!

The only downside is that you can't lift bosses but with that DPS they have, it's not much of a problem. And hey. You can still throw a blockade in the way if needed.

Earthshatter also has an incredible range of 6000 with maxed Gambit. And doesn't require a LoS.

What makes this defense interesting?

• Enough range so that you don't even know what to do with it. 6000 cone without even using Deadly Strikes. You should however note that this range may sometimes work against it - with ES attacking and CC-ing things before they reach your killzone, thus slowing the whole process. In these cases, you may not actually want to use the Range Gambit.
  
• Doesn't require any LoS, allowing for a lot of creative placements, even more so with its impressive range.
  
• 0,75s rate AoE hard-CC which only Special Enemies and Headstrong lanes can counter. Two Earthshatter will mostly paralyze a lane.
  
• High T1 damage (single-target), which is an important factor on a 60 DU tower since you shouldn't upgrade it.
  
• Knockup fully counts as a stun for the sake of countering Controlled Burn and procing Controller.

Shards

Earth Toss. It's the reason this tower is here. You never want to use ES without this one.

The remaining two are of course Rate and (Mass) Destruction. Actually, you may want to use Mass Destruction on this tower because it's just that build-defining.

Mods

… I'll update my screenshot once I have enough clusters to add some mods to my relic.

We are using +Rate to reach the max rate of 0,75s. After that, ES offers a lot of possibilities.

• Boom: Melee Boom sounds like the most logical choice. The reason is that melee will advance in a line until they reach their objective. You don't want that because Earthshatter is a localized hit. So get rid of these annoying melees ASAP. Then you'll only have the ranged and support to worry about. The thing about them is that their range makes it so that they stop at around the same point, becoming perfect targets for ES's localized AoE. Also, another reason to use a Boom mod at all is that only the primary target takes the full damage of ES' hit, so having that one explode increases the damage dealt by ES a lot.
  
• Controller or Anti-X mods: the liftup from Earth Toss seems to proc Controller* so it's a natural match. For the anti-X mods, you'll usually want melee because they are the most likely to have high HP. Beside you must get rid of them in priority.
  
• Critical Damage: with ES's incredible base damage, a crit hit hurts. A lot. You may want to capitalize on that if you don't need the range mod.
  
• You could use +Range. You could. But have you ever heard of overkill? Because that's the very definition of it. The problem is that there are a limited amount of scenarios where you could actually make use of a 8000+ cone range. So more damage in a reduced range will be profitable to this tower as it works in all scenarios.

*I had a hard time testing this one, what with everything dying after the first hit. Would be glad if someone could confirm.

Now there is also Shatterquake. Basically, it inflicts a stackable DoT in an AoE around the point of impact. On the paper, it sounds good. However, there is only one sliiiight issue. That is, the fact that Earthshatter is a machine of absolute brutality and destruction that will kill most things before Shatterquake even gets to kick in. Because of that, Shatterquake never actually gets to shine except for minibosses.

So at the end of the day it certainly has its uses… But with Boom and Controller being pretty much mandatory, you'll need a gilded Rate shard. And even so, you'd be better off using something impacting instant damage like Critical Damage or Critical Chance mods. Or Anti-Melee, or…

Usage

With its 6000 range, and the fact that it doesn't require a LoS, it can't get easier to place it. Make sure that it can reach your killzone if you have one or that it covers as much ground as possible.

Only use ES to cover a single lane however. But since its targeting works on proximity, you can have it reach more than one as long as its main lane is the closest.

A Headstrong lane effect will demolish any strategy based on ES.

And be wary of kobolts as usual. But it shouldn't be much of a problem. And ES doesn't hit things that aren't directly on the ground. e.g. Malthius, Dark Mages, Assassins… and possibly Geodes but I never got an isolated live sample remaining this way for long enough to test.

Gimmicks

You can actually kill air with this tower! With a Boom mod, things will explode after having been thrown into the air, damaging everything around them in the process. Jump near a lifted enemy with an assassin on your back for bonus style points.

Conclusion

Incredible cone range, no need for any kind of LoS, an absurd amount on CC and DPS, AoE, doesn't need to be upgraded to work at full efficiency…

This tower has everything to such an extent that it's unfair.

[META] Fissure of Embermount

Basics

If you have ever used Flame Aura, reading that Fissure of Embermount is basically the same thing should make sense to you. Actually, there are only little differences between them:

• Fissure's range is slightly higher than FA, while FA's rate is 0,07s higher than Fissure's.

• FA can hit air in a spherical radius. From my observations, Fissure has a cylindrical range which extends both upward and downward but it will ever only hit ground enemies. (Basically, there is a check that makes it unable to damage flying enemies.) The visual effect is not a reliable source to determine if things are in range. You'll need to determine that manually.

• It also produces the lavamancer's resource but whatever. This is not a factor we take into consideration here.

But now, you may wonder why Fissure of Embermount is [META] while Fire Aura is just [GOOD]? Onto the next part.

What makes this tower interesting

• It's basically an reskinned Fire Aura. For this reason, it has the exact same benefits except from hitting air. Being an aura, it can hit through any kind of defense, such as shields or geodes.

• Unlike Fire Aura, it can be stacked without difficulty.

• Its huge range allows it to be placed outside of the Cy's range.

• Can't get frozen. It's, well, you know, lava. (Actually I'm not exactly sure about these frost orcs, but Yetis will ignore them altogether.)

• Embermount Flames, its special mod. (See the next section for the details.)

Embermount Flames

Because it's very important to understand how Embermount Flames works, we have a whole section dedicated to that.

So here goes. When hit by a Fissure (even just one time!) the target will get hit by the Embermount Flames debuff for its duration.

You'll see the effect kicking in once it leaves the Fissure's range. And actually it's quite simple: the mob suffering from the debuff will keep taking the damage from Fissure of Embermount until it runs out or it dies. These damage do carry any buff or debuff applied to Fissure. (Boost Aura, freeze, etc.)

If Fissure happens to get disabled, the debuff will go away and won't reapply once it gets enabled again. On the other hand, if it hits a mob which has Controlled Burn, the debuff will apply and will start dealing damage once it's under the effect of a valid CC. (Burn ironically not being a valid one for the sake of Controlled Burn.)

Finally, this debuff stacks from multiple Fissures. So if you have 6 Fissures, it will apply six times per mob if they get hit by each.

The huge duration of Embermount Flames makes it absolutely invaluable in long lanes and makes this defense far more efficient than Fire Aura for anything that isn't flying.

So as you may have guessed, no Fissure should ever be used with Embermount Flames.

Shards & Mods
Now, we have two main setups for Fissure. The DPS variant will take full advantage of Embermount Flames and loads as much damage as we can possibly fit. The balanced variant will, as the name suggests, go for a more balanced result which offers more range for more placement options in Cy and double lanes.

Damage:

• Shards: Destruction & Rate are mandatory. (Unless you have a maxed rate mod.) To fill the remaining slot(s), you can use Mass Destruction or Vampiric Empowerment. Or, of course, a crit variant if you are using that kind of build.

• Mods: depend a lot on how you will be using them. Power is useful since it's usually alone and unbuffed near the spawns. Buffed Power also is useful, if you plan to have it boosted by BA or Destructive Pylon. Critical Damage is always good and reliable but needs some Crit Chance to really shine. Then there are the classical Anti-Melee or Controller if you can make use of it.

Balanced:

• Along with Destruction and Rate, we are running Deadly Strikes for a massive range.

• As mods, there are multiple options. You can go for even more Range, or opt for damage with Anti-Melee, Controller or any of the other options from the damage variant.

Which one is better? I personally prefer the balanced version because I favor versatility but if you're looking for raw results, damage may be more fitting for you. In the end, it is mostly about whether Cy's will be a problem or not.

Usage

Because of how Embermount Flames works, you only need to tag mobs to get the full effect of Fissures. Beside, you want them to get hit as soon as possible, so you'll want to have your Fissures as close to the spawns as possible.

One thing of note is that there are some very crowded lanes and Fissure can only hit a maximum of 10 targets. For this reason, you may not actually want to exploit 100% of its range but rather only a this layer (that is, the edge) of it so it doesn't reach the targets limit. You could also stack them so the weakest mobs will die quickly, freeing some of the target cap.

Conclusion

Fissures of Embermount have always been good, but with Embermount Flames, it's a 30 DU aura that will be of use for any light or heavy AoE duty. Just drop one or two near a spawn, boost it if you want and watch the world burn.

[META] Boost Aura (and Buff Beam)

Basics

I'm putting these two together since they are pretty much doing the same thing, with Buff Beam being an inferior version of Boost Aura - more DU cost are more quirkier to use. It boosts DP slightly more than Boost Aura though. Also, I'll be mostly referring to Boost Aura in this part, but except for defense-specific shards, it's the exact same thing with Buff Beam - with slightly different values.

Anyway, as the name may suggest, the role of these two defenses is to boost the rest of your build. For most low-scaling defenses, it basically gives two free levels of upgrade. For high-scaling defense, the benefits become explosive after one or two upgrades.

If you have 40 free DU, this is the very best way you could employ them - and if you don't, it may more often than not be beneficial to substitute a defense for a boost aura.

(That's the only one with perfect rolls since I never actually got a non-perfect one, what with people throwing these mods at you for a few coins?)

What makes this tower interesting

?• It. Buffs. Things. That mean that you can benefit from improved towers without the need to spend mana. This way, you can actually spend it to upgrade what matters most. That's both a timesaver and mana-saver.

• That one is an exaggeration, but it can make anything meta — or at least outrageously good.

Shards and Mods

There are many ways to build Boost Aura (while Buff Beam is as straightforward as it gets) but we are only interested in the buff aspect of this defense for this guide.

You have multiple choices for mods, but two are highly recommended if not mandatory: Diverse Power and Diverse CD. So here's the idea: if you're using a buffing defense, that means that there will be other defenses around. Even if you're only having two of these around, it will nearly equal a simple Power or CD mod, if you have three or more, it's better.

Now, the third mod is up to your preference, but I highly recommend Crit Damage as it will give you a sweet 0,25% crit damage per 1% crit damage on the BA. A maxed roll C8 would give you no less than 8,75% CD. The other option would be a Power mod. Boost Aura gives 1 DP per 10 DP it possesses - unless you get into very high values where there seems to be some sort of diminishing return or something.

And then the shards. Obviously, you'll want Destructive Pylon - since it provides a DP boost and further boosts the neighboring defenses. Note that Destructive Pylon has a 1000 range while unboosted Boost Aura (what?) has a a 680 range. As long as something benefits from Boost Aura, it will benefit from Destructive Pylon.

Destructive Pylon doesn't stack with Destruction (well, so the description says) but no one said anything about Mass Destruction. This is actually a very neat way to dilute your Mass Destruction so it benefits from multiple towers, in a lesser way however.

And finally, the third shard should be either Boosted Power for more DP, or Defense Critical Damage for even more CD.

Another option would be to use Deadly Strikes for slightly more range, but you'd lose in raw efficiency so you'd be better off adapting your setup to fit in the 680 base range. Beside, even with Vicious Strikes, the increase isn't that good to begin with and would only actually be useful in a limited number of situations - most of these involving a ledge, with BA's vertical range being very limited.

Usage

Place the Boost Aura. Place your things around it. Done.

… Is what I want to say, but there is a little issue. With its maximum range of 1000 (since we want everything to benefit from Destructive Pylon) you can't place both your auras and your ranged defenses in the same BA, unless said aura has an extreme range. For this reason, you'll have to decide if you want an aura-centric build or a ranged-centric one.

Ideally, you'd want to use only one or the other so BA benefits to as much defenses as possible but if you can't or don't want to, simply figure which would benefit most from the boost.

The second thing with Boost Aura is the setup of the towers using it, but I'm not going much into details here since this guide is about towers. Boost Aura buffing defenses means that they can benefit from the Power when buffed mods, which is a 15% or so increased DP at perfect roll. But you'll lose a lot of flexibility by doing so. Thus, I'd advise you to look at Diverse type mods which are a very good if not better alternative, and work in many more situations.

Conclusion

Unlike the rest of the defenses in this guide, Boost Aura restricts and conditions your build a lot — both with placements and with setups if you go all the way.

If you decide to use Diverse CD and Diverse Critical on your other towers, you can reach a raw result far superior to anything I'm recommending in this guide - but remember that it won't be as versatile and forces you to build in a given way.

If you want numbers, I reached more than 20m DPS on a T5 Earthshatter and 10m+ on Hornets, with realistic 200 DU builds. Also, LSA gives some impressive numbers although the tooltip doesn't take crit damage into account.

[META] Dryad

This time it's not a single defense but a whole class. Although you'll mainly see Moss Hornets Nests and more rarely Nimbuses, people are starting to use Slimes and even Harpies. In terms of efficiency, all the Dryad's towers are extremely useful either because of their raw potential or their gimmicks.

Also, unlike the rest of the [META] towers, the Dryad's aren't completely broken (except Moss Hornets Nest), but being meta-defining all by herself, I thought that the Dryad deserved a mention in this guide. As a matter of fact, if Hornets stacking on a single enemy wasn't a thing, she would be extremely well balanced.

If you want more information about the Dryad, take a look at my Dryad Guide: it's more detailed than any explanation I could give here.

[GOOD] Skeletal Ramster

Basics

Ramsters have been used to counter Geodes since they first appeared in C3, but have always been useful. Just like the Apprentice's Firethrowers, they can damage through any kind of shield. In some way, you can see it as the tower version of a Fire Aura or a Fissure of Embermount - with a little more DPS.

What makes this tower interesting?

• The way it delivers its damage automatically pierces through geodes, shields and even terrain. (Although the tower itself needs a LoS for targeting.)

• Even though it requires a Deadly Strikes shard (or a maxed roll Range mod) in addition to a maxed Range Gambit, it achieves a 4000+ cone range. To build on our analogy with Fire Aura, it's pretty much a stronger version of the latter, with a more workable range. For a cost - 50 DU each.

• The 50 DU cost is perfectly adapted to an AoE tower, allowing you to leave it at T1-2 without any issue. Two Fire Auras or the likes will however outDPS Ramsters so the range will probably be the deciding factor if you were to choose between those.

Shards & Mods

I grouped these two this time, because it will depend a lot on whether you have a maxed Range mod or not. As for Rate and Destruction, it's the same as usual.

Now, if you don't have a maxed Range mod, Deadly Strikes is necessary to make the tower usable. That will fill the third shard slot. If you do, you can use the last shard slot for a DPS increase as usual.

Mods are another story. If you're using Deadly Strikes, you'll have two free mods slot. (Or three with a gilded rate.) Here are your options:

• Controller: as usual, you'll need a source of CC, but it's pretty much a free DPS increase and Ramsters range allow it to be placed in your killzone if you're using one.

• Anti-Melee: can be used along with Controller, and since Ramsters delivers its damage in a cone area, we don't really have to worry about Ranged and Support mobs, so melee is the best choice.

• Melee-Boom: for the same reason as before, we don't need to worry about Ranged and Support. Beside, with its cone damage, Melee-Boom will make for a lot of explosions in different places of the lane and not only on the front. (Note that we still have the 10 targets limit.)

• Range: you can use both Deadly Strikes and Range mod to give this tower a huge range, but it's only useful if you have the long lanes to actually exploit it. It's not a very versatile option, but if you know that you'll make use of it, that's a good one nevertheless.

• Fire Servo: because of its damage delivery (again!) Ramsters are very efficient against Frosty lanes. With Fire Servo, you can take it to another level by doubling all its damage against these mobs. Note that you will lose efficiency in other fields so it's the inferior choice in terms of versatility.

Usage

With its cone range, you'll want to use as much of it as you can. Try to find a long straight path for this. If you can't, its possible to circumvent this issue the same way you'd do with a PDT for instance, with CC's.

However, with Ramsters, you'll mainly want hard-CC against Berserkers, because it can usually take down most other threats without the need to soft-CC them. The exception here is of course Special Enemies, which can be slowed or stopped with a Blockade - or simply burst down.

Ramsters work best when placed in a killzone and can deal with all the low and medium HP threats. You'll need specialized defenses to deal with high-HP ones like Lava Guardians, Berserkers and Special Enemies.

As for upgrade, you should leave it at T1 or, if you're playing in high level Onslaught, T2. Any further upgrade would be a waste of mana since it's a 50 DU tower.

Conclusion

Being a tower with a cone AoE restricts the ways you can place it for full efficiency, but Skeletal Ramster is invaluable in dealing with large groups of enemies.

I had used it without any mod - so with a 1s rate and no Melee Boom - in Onslaught 100+ for a while before getting enough medals and it already worked flawlessly. Needless to say that with the right mods, it makes it even more effective.

[GOOD] Sky Guard Tower

Basics

Hard to do a guide about Interesting Towers without mentioning the staple of anti-air towers. I wasn't sure about putting in [META] or [GOOD] - what with it being the best AA but still not being an end-all to flyers?

Actually, this tower isn't that interesting in fact, but its setup needs some discussing.

What makes this tower interesting?

• The only AA-only tower which can deal with multiple flyers at once.
• Huge circular range, making it extremely convenient to use and can easily cover multiple air lanes.
• Slows anything it hits.

Shards

Usual Rate and DPS shenanigans. Add to that Deadly Strikes in order to hit Kobolds and Kobolts before they get any funny idea. Beside, the range helps doubly in covering multiple lanes if needed.

Mods

Mods are the real issue with SGT. There are two main setups, sharing only one mod.
• Controller: this one is primed by SGT itself. There is really no reason for not using it.

Then the specific ones. If you're playing in C7, you'll want to use Anti-Support to deal with Kobolts more efficiently. If you're playing in any other difficulty - that is, in Onslaught - you'll rather want Ranged Boom.

So, why Ranged Boom? On the paper, Anti-Support sounds like the best choice, but once you use it in Onslaught, you'll quickly understand the issue: Kobolts usually appear with Ranged flyers. A lot of ranged flyers in fact. And sometimes, they're not in lead position. When this happens, SGT will waste a lot of time dealing with the closest flyers, possibly giving enough time to Kobolts for them to initiate their charge. Ranged Boom will help a lot to counter that issue - but on the highest difficulties, even with that, SGT alone won't be enough.

If you were to use a gilded Rate shard, you could use the third mod slot for either a Range mod to build upon the already existing high range… or you could use Anti-Ranged/Anti-Support. Anti-Support could work but considering the Ranged issue, dealing with them faster, and thus initiating Ranged Boom earlier, could work in more situations. Thinning the herd this way also allows a support AA tower to deal its job more efficiently.

Usage

Put it in your killzone so it benefits from the buffs if possible.

Otherwise, put it in such a way that it uses as much of its range as possible. Note that SGT requires a LoS and enough space for the projectiles. (If you put it just beside a wall, some projectiles will crash against it.)

Conclusion

That's it. Plain old SGT. Can't go wrong with it as long as you have enough DU's.

[GOOD] Flame Aura

Basics

If we look at its popularity, Flame Aura should be on the meta tier - but its actual effectiveness is not quite there. It's a pretty straightforward and uninteresting tower, so we'll go over it quickly.

The strength of this tower is that it hits everything in its range, but on the other hand, its damage are quite low. It will work very well on lower difficulties, but as the difficulty ramps up, you will find it less and less useful. But up to (including) regular C7, it will help you a lot.

There are actually two main ways to build this tower.

What makes this defense interesting?

• Being an aura, FA damages through any form of shield. Thanks to its high range, it may also damage Cy's quite a lot before they initiate their EMP. With multiple FA's and/or a support DPS tower, it's possible to deal with them before they can actually finish their EMP. Or initiate, given enough DPS.
  
• Its spherical range allows interesting placements, dealing damage to thing both above and below it, including some flyers like kobolts.
  
• Kind of low damage for an AoE tower so you'll have to upgrade it before it can be on par with most other AoE towers. However, with its range, most things with few HP will be dealt with before they leave its radius and the rest will have been more or less severely damaged, even left at T1.
  
• Being a Fire element aura by default, it deals double damage against Frosty lanes.

Shards

The range variant (Deadly Strikes) is useful if you have no CC, while the DPS variant (Mass Destruction) shines if you can somehow lock things in its radius. Say, a blockade. The problem with the DPS variant is that you need to sacrifice your Mass Destruction shard and there are better uses for it. You could replace Mass Destruction with Vampiric Empowerment or another DPS shard, but the increase would not make up for the loss of range.

Just like all the Aura defenses however, it makes for a good buffer with Destructive Pylon. Beside, its low damage makes it that it's better as the defense doing the buffing than as the one being buffed.

Mods

• Melee or Range Boom:That one really depends on your build. I'm using range on this one because I have already a lot of other sources of Melee Booms. If you're in the same situation, go for Range. Otherwise, Melee gets to see more action. Also, if you're using only at the spawn with no other defense in range, Melee may be more useful - given that your FA's damage are enough to kill things efficiently to begin with.
  
• Tenacity FA's radius isn't that great, so if you have to put it out of the way, you lose even more of its effectiveness. That's not something you want to have to do - so Tenacity.
  
• Range: more range is always good and is a perfectly viable alternative to Tenacity. It will also help with air lanes since FA has a spherical range. Beside, having more range also means that it will hit for a longer time before mobs get out of it's AoE.

Usage

You should never use more than 4 FA's per lane. The first one should be right at a lane's entrance to catch and kill all the weakest mobs and allow your other defenses to do their job more efficiently. Having one at the entrance will also make the most out of Explosive Melees/Ranged and weaken even the resilient mobs thanks to that.

You should have it reach ever so slightly into the entrances so it starts damaging as soon as possible - you don't want the mobs to separate into individual groups before you can proc these explosions.

Now for the three remaining, it should actually be 1~3. They will be stacked at your CC/Blockade in such a way that the overlap is where the mobs will remain the longest. Just in front of your Blockade for instance. However, most of the time, it's just more efficient to use one in this way and reserve the remaining DU's for other towers, like a single target one for instance - because that's where FA is lacking.



At least one FA should reach behind your Blockade if you don't plug your lanes. Just in case a Berserker decides to bypass it and attack from behind.

Also, just like WM, with Deadly Strikes, Flame Aura can reach air lanes given the flyers fly low enough. (Kobolts for instance - and anything flying at this altitude and slightly higher.) Because of its sphere-like range, it can also reach downward in the same fashion allowing it to cover multiple lanes in some cases. (Note that AoE towers are limited to 10 targets, so that may be risky if both lanes are very dense.)

You should not upgrade it past T2-3 since it's enough to kill most weak things while anything past that still wouldn't be enough for resilient ones.

Conclusion

Flame Aura is all about brute forcing things and clearing hosts of mobs. It will do the job for quite some time, but once things get hard, it will fall behind a lot of other alternatives.

[GIMMICK] Explosive Trap / Snaking Sands / Oil Geyser

Basics

These three defenses are very different, but I put them together here because with this gimmick, they have the same function.

However…

• Explosive trap is a DPS alternative. Out of the three, it may be the less useful. To get the most out of a single Explosive Trap, it would either require a extremely precise placing or to be put just in front of a spawn. Since we're using it for buffing with that setup, that's pretty much not an option.
  
• Snaking Sand's huge AoE allows to stun both air and ground and pulls mobs toward its center before the stun procs. The time between the triggering of the trap and the actual stun makes it possibly hard to use - for instance it will not stun the cyborks before they use their EMP - but the payoff is worth it. It will shine against most Special Enemies for instance. The reason it's listed as [GIMMICK] is that very delay between trigger and activation which requires an adapted build to exploit efficiently.
  
• Oil Geyser is an interesting tool both as a DPS and as a CC, but the DPS is not as high as Explosive Trap and the low rate doesn't help, making the DPS extremely situational. It can, however, hit low air lanes such as kobolts. As a CC tool, it can effectively slow to a crawl by oiling (to 19,5% at best) and stun, delivering both soft and hard CC in addition to counter Controlled Burn and prime for Controller if you're using it on another defense. Unlike Snaking Sand, Oil Geyser's stun is instantaneous - but random, which is the reason it ends up in the [GIMMICK] category.

The idea is to use these 20 DU towers to buff your other towers with Destructive Pylon - be it your frontline auras/nodes or your backline towers. What makes it really interesting is that Destructive Pylon is pretty much a free upgrade level - for 20 mana/DU and the defense still brings its own utility on the table.

It's pretty much the best use you can have for 20 spare DU aside from LSA. For instance, using a Destructive Pylon trap + PDT would actually be more beneficial than using two PDT because of the lack of poison stacking.

Shards

• (Explosive Traps) Fire for Effect: 50% chance for double DPS? You can't do better. Plus, it will proc Proactive Traps twice.
  
• (Snaking Sands) Deadly Strikes: between the moment it triggers and the moment it stuns, some times elapses. You need the extra range to have a chance to stun berserkers before they are long gone. You may want to add in Vicious Strikes for even more range.
  
• (Oil Geyser) Oil Spill: adds stun, very useful against berserkers and anything else since one second they are stunned is one second saved up for dealing damage to them before they retaliate. Destruction actually stacks with Destructive Pylon so you can use it as third shard. You can also use Oily Entrapment to further slow down anything but the berserkers. Although useless against the latter, it may serve against Special Enemies which are vulnerable to soft-CC.

Mods

(Explosive Traps) Proactive Traps: who doesn't want 20 000 free DP? Note that this bonus will reset every time you upgrade the trap. | Any DPS mod in third slot. I tend to use critical damage which works well with the numerous hits. Boom mods may also work but it doesn't score that many kills used this way to begin with.
(Snaking Sands) Range: same reason as Deadly Strikes. | Tenacity is a good choice as third mod since it won't stun the Cyborks right away so it's not a bad idea to have a safety net.

Usage

Put it near whatever you need to buff. If applicable, in such a way that it will do its usual job at the same time. Remember to take into account the strength and weakness of each trap when choosing which to use. In most cases, Snaking Sand or Oil Geyser will be the superior choice, but if you can't or don't want to switch out your Huntress out of your deck for some reason, Explosive Trap is an option - albeit certainly not optimal.

Conclusion

This combo is not build-defining, but on some heavy lanes it can make for a noticeable difference. And used to support the right defenses, it can make a great job of CC-locking entire lanes.

Upcoming & Updates Log

Upcoming

A glimpse at the defenses I plan to add in this guide, in no particular order.

• Oil Geyser
  
• Sand Trap
  
• Cannonball Tower*
  
• Sand Viper**

*From all my testing, Cannonball just feels like a subpar, physical, version of Lightning Strikes Aura with a few added gimmicks. Because of that, unless I figure something new about this one, I'll probably keep it for last if I'm doing it at all.
**Not sure about this one. Sounds quite gimmicky for the little testing I did with it - for diverse reasons.

Updates

• 17/07 - Added Fissure of Embermount
  
• 13/07 - Added Boost Aura section and Shatterquake mod for Earthshatter Tower

Credits

• Tyler#1581 @Discord for the Earthshatter setup and for reminding me how awesome this tower is.
  
• OxBow#4355 for the rates on WM and explaining to me how to calculate most of them using the inventory rate value.

[WEREWOLF]

who drop Frosty shard chip?

[WEREWOLF]

or to whom?

[WEREWOLF]

where drop Frosty shard chip? on weapon

[Fuzen]

Except for WM which got some changes in the latest update, yup.  I haven't used WM since, but chances are that it's still top tier, though you'll have to change how you use it since you can't stack the nodes as much as before apparently.

You can get Shocking Revelation anywhere from campaign to C7. Having EV in your active deck sharply improves the odds.

[WEREWOLF]

where drop Shocking Revelation?

[RxC_BigBoss]

havent played in a long time. are these builds still viable?

[Fuzen]

— Sand Viper… well, it suffers from the Slime syndrome: not really bad, but there is just always a better option.
— Hailstorm… I don't know really. I tried something with Glacier and I'll be honest, the numbers were REALLY impressive. The problem was the damage delivery. The projectile are quirky and slow. Like, *really* slow. To the point that Glacier doesn't ever hit anything because either they're dead or Hailstorm is. As long as they don't tweak it, its only worth is as a gimmicky support-tower (either for AA duty or with earthshatter, where Glacier would maybe serve at least a bit… but once again, SGT and PDT exist, so it's difficult to imagine a situation where one would place it over these. I mean, Hailstorm HAS a 25% damage taken debuff but being single target, it would only make sense on bosses and well… air only.)

[Fuzen]

So…
— Ballista is in the Google version. Steam is a pain to update so I didn't get around doing it… yet?
— Slimes… are really not good anymore. If you're not actively playing Dryad, disregard them completely since there is always - and I mean it - a better option. If you're playing corrupted, you have the oiling… but that kind of CC would only be useful against Cy's and Zerkers. And Zerkers are immune while Cy have the time to cover too much ground before getting oiled for it to be useful. (And you need them as much as possible in the middle of the way for them to work at full efficiency.)
— I tried Blaze Balloon a bit, but between the trigger-activation and the low range, you are limited to lanes without Cy's and even then, you have way better options for 60 DU. Maybe with a perfect Tenacity it would be worth using but even so, it remains a lesser alternative to other things such as PDT or Fissure which do the same thing, but far better.

[Cranky]

Also:

- Is there a way to make the hailstorm tower worth placing.. at all?
- What about the sand viper? Anything?
- Is the Blaze Balloon just not worth the trouble?
- What purpose do slimes serve these days, if you're not actively on your Dryad? Do they still oil? Or is that only in corrupt mode?

[Cranky]

Where is the Ballista section?