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All Alphi's Tower Guide By Phlaix Version:1.00


THIS GUIDE WAS CO-EDITED BY user:Playing on a netbook

Towers Button

Like any good tower defense, towers are one of the key elements that contribute to the success or failure on any map. These defenses are the only things keeping enemies at bay while you're in some other remote part of the area. (*winks at Glitterhelm Caverns*) They are used much more at any time than a hero, albeit they don't provide the mobility and damage range that the hero can. Think of it like this; towers spend all their time attacking monsters as long as they're in range well as heroes can sometime have seconds where they stop to turn their camera or reload. That's why this guide is meant to help you in maximizing your towers and make full use of them all the time.


Tower Types

You can formulate lots of strategies if you can just break down these different towers into easy to remember groups. Some towers may not perfectly fit neatly into a group but bear with me on this. Simply put you can break down towers into three types:

  1. Attack Towers: These towers focus on attacking monsters and deal massive damage to them.
  2. Defense Towers: These towers are pretty much walls that will halt monster in their tracks.
  3. Hybrid Towers: These can attack and defend at the same time.

Attack Towers

These towers are exclusively for dealing damage to monsters, preferably killing them all or thinning out a group. They usually do not have high health so it offsets it a bit. Use these towers depending on each situation and place them accordingly depending on what you're aiming for which we'll discuss later. I'll italicize the different attack types for each tower.
  1. Apprentice
    • Magic Missile Tower
      Magic Missile Tower
      • Single Attack to a monster. Not strong but cheap so a lot of them in clusters together may be good for picking off enemies one by one especially flying types.
    • Fireball Tower
      Fireball Tower
      • Area Attack to a mob. Used for choke points especially when two paths merge.
    • Lightning Tower
      Lightning Tower
      • Area Attack to a mob. Lightning chains can reach long distances and has a nice 360° radius. Good for placing in spots where you want to cover two or more locations at the same time.
    • Deadly Striker Tower
      Deadly Striker Tower
      • Single Attack to a monster. Nice for quickly picking off monsters but expensive.
  2. Squire
    • Harpoon Turret
      Harpoon Turret
      • Line Attack to a mob. It pierces straight trough so it works best when monsters are lined up in narrow passages. Plus it has a long reach.
    • Bowling Ball Turret
      Bowling Ball Turret
      • Line Attack to a mob. It damages anything the ball hits which can ricochet of walls. Good on top of inclines to speed the balls up and narrow passages so that the ball ricochets forward instead of randomly.
  3. Huntress
    • Proximity Mine Trap
      Proximity Mine Trap
      • Area Attack to a mob. It can help thin out large mobs especially if the trap radius is large and reset is fast.
    • Inferno Trap
      Inferno Trap
      • Area Attack to a mob. It doesn't kill quickly but it lingers so that it can reduce the health of a lot of monsters for an easier kill later on.
    • Ethereal Spike Trap
      Ethereal Spike Trap
      • Area Attack to a mob. It is recommended more for flying creatures rather than land monsters. It is great for flying creatures if the trap resets quickly.
  4. Monk
    • Electric Aura
      Electric Aura
      • Area attack to a mob. Since monsters without electric immunity get damaged constantly, it is a good killer or very helpful in wearing down the health of larger mobs.

Defense Towers

Defense towers, as the name implies, are meant to help impede monsters from proceeding forward. That is why some towers will be classified as defense even if they may not block a path but simply prevent monsters moving ahead. I'll italicize the different defense types for each tower.
  1. Apprentice
    • Magic Blockade
      Magic Blockade
      • Blocking Defense. Monsters that walk into this have their elemental attributes stripped away which is good for elemental attack towers.
  2. Squire
    • Spike Blockade
      Spike Blockade
      • Blocking Defense. Attacking this means getting hurt for melee monsters. Good for weakening them while blocking. It also covers a significantly wide area.
  3. Huntress
    • Gas Trap
      Gas Trap
      • Delaying Defense. Monsters affected but the trap will be stopped for a while but allowed to proceed after. Good for getting them to stay in an area that they'll get bombarded.
    • Darkness Trap
      Darkness Trap
      • Disruption Defense. Monsters will suddenly be stunned and can't attack for a while and also they will lose their target in the confusion.
  4. Monk
    • Ensnare Aura
      Ensnare Aura
      • Delaying Defense. Getting caught in this aura will make monsters move slowly which is good for collecting several monsters in a single location for a large attack.
    • Strength Drain Aura
      Strength Drain Aura
      • Delaying Defense. If you want to make your other towers last longer against enemy attacks this will definitely help especially if you want to delay ogres from breaking them.

Hybrid Towers

These towers are special and are used in very different ways than other towers or in both ways. They can cause delays and even hurt monsters. I'll italicize the different attack and defense types for each tower.

  1. Squire
    • Bouncer Blockade
      Bouncer Blockade
      • Knockback Attack and Blocking Defense. If you want to make monster fall off ledges and die this strategic tower is used with precise placement.
    • Slice N Dice Blockade
      Slice N Dice Blockade
      • Area Attack and Blocking Defense. If you want something that can attack and defend a narrow space at the same time, these are good but they use lots of defense units.
  2. Monk
    • Healing Aura
      Healing Aura
      • Hero Power-up. If your hero can just stand in the middle of this and act as a tower then this aura is perfect for you. Your hero will be able to safely attack monster and prevent them from proceeding. Good for bosses too.
    • Enrage Aura
      Enrage Aura
      • Area Attack and Delaying Defense This will cause some monsters in the aura to get confused and attack fellow monsters which can both delay them and hurt them.


Now that you know the basics of each tower and what they can do, we'll be discussing on how to put all of this information into practice. You now know your chess pieces now let's get onto some strategies and game plans.

Tower Placement Concepts

Now that you know how all the towers behave and what their strengths and weaknesses are, you'll have a much greater chance of success. Try and identify big choke points and possible killing zones on the maps, and place your towers accordingly. This is essential in any mode, especially in pure strategy mode. Like I mentioned before, towers don't have the same mobility as heroes (Duh, they can't move, except turn around). When aiming for the optimal placement of towers, simply think about these:


Tower Role

What is this towers role? There are several roles that towers can take which were tackled quickly in the previous section. We have different roles for different towers which we can determine on our own and not by the tower itself. It can depend on several factors from the hero's build to the location on the map. The roles towers can take are the following which can be from one category to multiple categories at the same time:
  1. Thinne
    Fireballtower
    r
    • These towers are usually placed near spawn points, choke points or merge points. Their aim is to start reducing the health of as many monsters at the same time as possible. So here come your Electric Auras and Fireball towers. Thinners aim to just hurt monsters. It's ok if they don't kill them because your goal is to cause a large "total" damage to a group. Would you rather 1000 damage on a single goblin in one hit or 200 damage to 10 goblins in one hit? Once they're weaker, you or your other defenses can start picking them off later
  2. Stopper
    • The goal of these towers is to cause a delay in the movement of the monsters. Usually combined with other towers with different roles like thinners or finishers.Imagine if you could
    • keep doing area damage to an ever increasing mob or catch monsters and
      Spikeblockade

      Spike Blockade

      position them for a final attack. They don't have to be combined with other tower roles. They can just help a hero who is good at crowd control to gather a mob to mow down. Give a hero an Ensnare Aura at a choke point and watch him finish a whole group in one go. Plus he can move to other locations while waiting.
  3. Finisher
    • You can already guess what this role does. It finally finishes off whatever comes in its way. This role
      Slicendiceblockade

      Slice N Dice Blockade / SnD / Slicer

      is mostly used for flying enemies since you want them dead before they hit the crystal. Since monsters have already been weakened by the thinners, the finishers don't have to do much damage to kill them. Slice N Dice Blockades are nice for this since monsters are already weak, there won't be a pile up of monsters
You can actually skip straight to finisher but that's assuming your towers can take out enemies in one hit right off the bat. You don't want your finishers to get destroyed by a 50 goblin pile up. These roles will help you especially when you're not at max level since strategy is the only thing that will allow you to complete missions which are above your level. Weakening is good since it will allow your hero to kill them more easily but if you can kill them already then be my guest.

Tower Usage

When can this tower be used? If you have a blockade, Tower A, that stops all monsters before it reaches another blockade further down the line, Tower B. Tower B is never going to be used. You might as well have spent that mana and those defense units on attack towers to support Tower A.


Tower Safety

Will monsters attack my tower? Remember that you don't have to place them withing monsters' reach. You can place attack towers behind defense towers but make sure you take note of the topography of the map so that your towers are safe. Imagine being bombarded by Fireball Towers from way up high or Bowling Ball Turrets Firing down to the group below.
Bowlingballtower

Bowling Ball Turret / Cannon

Multiple Usage

How many times can I use my tower? Don't you wish that you can attack a monster line twice with the same tower? You can as long as you position them well. Towers can be used multiple times in different ways:
  1. The same monster line multiple times
    • Auras are the usual here since a lot of maps allow auras to cover two points in a monster path. So it will affect them once and then again when they reach the same aura. This is where tower range comes in play. Not only parallel paths but also corners where 75% of the aura will be used.
  2. Multiple monster lines alternating
    • If you see two different monster paths that travel closely together then you might want to consider putting up something like a Lightning Tower or an aura. Maybe you can try to catch a point where land monsters and flying monster meet and have a tower to hit both of them. Remember idle towers are not maximizing the tower's potential but too many enemies is also bad.
  3. Combined monster lines all at once.
    • Wouldn't you rather have area damage for a larger group than just a single line? That way you can combine the defenses and deal more damage. Think of it like this; You use a two separate Fireball Towers against two different choke points. But wouldn't it be better to hit them both at the same time once they merged. Since the Fireball Tower does area damage, you hit all the monsters. One Fireball tower will do the same amount of damage to both the lines. But now you have extra defense units and can but another Fireball Tower or spend it somewhere else.
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