Again starting with the map:
Common towers:
Baby Rabbit - Decent range and multishot make it somewhat useful as an early game carry - weak single target damage causes it to fail hard later on though.
Beaver - decent stun tower with good range 1-3 and 6 work well and don't take up your main spots otherwise any leftover 7-17 spot can be used for them as well
Dandelion - Same as Rabbit but more useful for mass challenges
Hitman - good early on to kill the odd leak and can be placed almost anywhere (so 4-6 works fine). It tends to steal xp from the carry though. Can be used as a carry but that requires a lot of luck and planning.
Scientist: Can be used to level up "spots" for other towers so put them in positions where you do need leveled support towers (for me that's 7-10) or a leveled carry (I almost always use a scientist on 12)
Thief: Decent support for early game - will usually produce a large amount of gold over the first few waves.
Uncommon towers:
Electric Chair - Right now I don't see a point in using this as there are better aoe options, it requires a way too high level to get extra hits and it's overall just too weak for a 1 range.
Elvis Imitator - can be good if you get a high level one at 17 or if you aren't using the 11 spot for another tower. In many other spots you'll just end up speeding up the creeps.
Poison Frog - Possible carry the only downside being it's low base attackspeed so you may want some aoe support for mass waves.
Scarecrow - used to be a really good carry especially since it doesn't rely on Helm of Hades don't know if it still works with the lower bat number (since it already had troubles with some wave types)
Shadow - Possible carry, which is sort of weak against challenge waves due to it's ability. 4 range allows it to hit creeps almost anywhere when places at 8/12 and does not require helm of hades.
Witch - the only buff support right now and since their aura stacks you should get as many as possible to buff your carry as well as any supports that benefit from it (beaver/huli/muli, Knusperhexe)
Wolf - Works if you get many of them as well as a helm of hades - since you usually don't it doesn't really serve a purpose :/
Rare towers:
Bear Trapper - amazing aoe tower place him at 13 and watch mass (or even normal) waves melting down.
Holgar - kind of sort of carry, but his low attackspeed and overall very random passive make him hard to pull through (idk if it's still possible with the nerfed messerschmidt's)
Huli - can work both as a carry or stun support with high range, great attackspeed and high crit.
Money Bin - Awful damage and attackspeed so you should really only place this if you're way ahead at the moment, already have at least 5k gold and expect to require a lot of gold later on. (like for Laser pewpew)
Unique towers:
Balu the Bear - good aoe support which gains a lot of damage passively so he scales well into later levels.
Black Widow - Good item find support that can even dish out some damage just make sure you place her on a leveled spot. (I prefer 14/15 for her)
Blofeld Lazer - possible carry if you actually bother to get a bazillion gold beforehand otherwise useless.
Genesha - should hit any of your towers that do level up frequently which is why I recommend the 16 position. Key of Wisdom in this tower will see great benefit due to it leveling up rapidly. Top priority unique tower (kind of expensive though)
Knusperhexe - Anti Mass support - the aura makes her a definite must have besides handbags do well on her.
Horadric Cube - used to upgrade items just place it at 1 and throw in any unused items.
Manitou - make sure this hits you carry other towers don't really benefit from it (unless it's a noncarry muli maybe)
Muli the Evil Twin - it's like Huli times two. Super powerful stun tower as well as a possible carry. Just make sure you can actually afford his drinking habits (I recommend at least 5k gold and 1-2 hulis before building him)
The Dark Forge - Mostly good for creating fodder to feed to the Horadric Cube. To level it all it takes is to place a single Dark Forged item in Ganesha and wait for any tower to level up with the Dark Forge being in Ganesha's Aura range - just make sure to remove that item from Genesha when the level difference between the two is low or otherwise he will be unable to level
Summary:
Well rounded carry towers: Muli/huli , Shadow (fails against horsemen), Blofeld (if you're into saving gold all game), Scarecrow (still works as far as I can tell)
Viable, but funky carry towers: Black Widow (low range -> helm of hades pretty much necessary), Frog (slow, also needs helm), Holgar, Bear Hunter (Gib/Muli are pretty much a must have for cc - as well as 1-2 longbows to counter his weakness)
Important support towers:
AoE towers (for normal/mass waves): Balu, Bear Hunter (works really well with meat mallets) , Knusperhexe (mass only)
CC: Gib (that slow is pretty much uncontested -> amazing anti boss tower), Beaver/Huli/Muli (somewhat unreliable unless they're in high numbers)
Aura: Genesha (must have), Manitou (must have for carry once you reach ~50% crit), Black Widow (must have item find), Witch (as many as you can fit in), [Money Bank] (Blofeld support)
Amazing guide Nillo, way to go! If we had something like a guide of the month content, this would be it!
Hopefully in the next release carries like Wolf, Scarecrow and Holgar will be viable again, too.
Also, this week I will start the first 'friends and family' alpha for 0.8! I'd be very happy to count you in :-)
Let me know if you're interested!
Awesome read man. Great job! I think though to give baby rabbit a little more credit. I use him almost exclusively as a starter unless I get a shadow before wave 5. Also I'm a little biased on Black widow since she's my favorite carry. By end game she no longer needs the helm and I've even finished a few games with her wearing 4 handbags :D All in all though great guide!
Yeah maybe if you place her at 17 hmmm
The main gripe I have with her is that she doesn't work with my usual setup.
As for the rabbit - never really needed it early on and it just doesn't have anything that would make it worthwhile midgame. With slightly higher base damage, lower damage on cleave but faster/higher scaling of extra hits I might consider it.
Thief is pretty similar, but has a very useful passive. And well Dandelion is just way ahead for mass waves.
Hey! Another possibility is to place Ganesha at 8 and Dark Forge at 4-6. That way you can have Dark Forge in range of Ganesha + your carry can have most towers around him Witches (if you place carry at 12)
I guess if I were to use Df it'd still be Gan-12 and Df-6. I think though Df is still a little too limited for now and unfortunately since I feel locs 4-6 to be the most useless that's where id put him.
6 still works for 3 range towers which means you may at least get some benefit from placing a stunner there - that's why I'd go for 4 with DF.
Well time to write an item overview.
So how do you guys make Widow carry work?
I've tried it a few times now while placing her at 16 and fail somewhere around 100 since she's either too slow or inconsistent which is kind of a problem due to her low range allowing for a small amount of hits only.
Indeed she is inconsistant at first. There's two ways to get her rolling that seem to work for me. In the first scenario if I have at least 7 leagues and 2 rare tbones then shes slightly op for the waves. Its just a matter of hoping for excalibur and helm of hades before the creeps get too strong. In the other scenario, a helm of hades and at least 1 but preferably 2 monster teeth coupled with manitou seems to give just enough oomph to keep it moving. If you can play here around wave 75 (lucky drop) then she usually gets pretty beast. Other games ive really had to take my chances just to get her out by wave 150. One other thing that helps getting her moving is to play her at the beginning of 2 or 3 mass waves. My favorite is 2 mass followed by mass challenge. Just hoping for messer to drop and sometimes it works! Other times not so well lol. Oi and Black widow is the only carry that makes me afraid im going to lose sometimes. Ranging from perfect games of 100+% health to games with 1 or 2% left. All in all though, once you surround her with fistfuls of steel and she hits 100% crit it's pretty much game over. Eventually the great crit potion drops make her op and you can replace your items with hand bags. On good games she can finish with 1-1.6m avg dmg every .1 sec.
Common towers:
Baby Rabbit - Decent range and multishot make it somewhat useful as an early game carry - weak single target damage causes it to fail hard later on though.
Beaver - decent stun tower with good range 1-3 and 6 work well and don't take up your main spots otherwise any leftover 7-17 spot can be used for them as well
Dandelion - Same as Rabbit but more useful for mass challenges
Hitman - good early on to kill the odd leak and can be placed almost anywhere (so 4-6 works fine). It tends to steal xp from the carry though. Can be used as a carry but that requires a lot of luck and planning.
Scientist: Can be used to level up "spots" for other towers so put them in positions where you do need leveled support towers (for me that's 7-10) or a leveled carry (I almost always use a scientist on 12)
Thief: Decent support for early game - will usually produce a large amount of gold over the first few waves.
Uncommon towers:
Electric Chair - Right now I don't see a point in using this as there are better aoe options, it requires a way too high level to get extra hits and it's overall just too weak for a 1 range.
Elvis Imitator - can be good if you get a high level one at 17 or if you aren't using the 11 spot for another tower. In many other spots you'll just end up speeding up the creeps.
Poison Frog - Possible carry the only downside being it's low base attackspeed so you may want some aoe support for mass waves.
Scarecrow - used to be a really good carry especially since it doesn't rely on Helm of Hades don't know if it still works with the lower bat number (since it already had troubles with some wave types)
Shadow - Possible carry, which is sort of weak against challenge waves due to it's ability. 4 range allows it to hit creeps almost anywhere when places at 8/12 and does not require helm of hades.
Witch - the only buff support right now and since their aura stacks you should get as many as possible to buff your carry as well as any supports that benefit from it (beaver/huli/muli, Knusperhexe)
Wolf - Works if you get many of them as well as a helm of hades - since you usually don't it doesn't really serve a purpose :/
Rare towers:
Bear Trapper - amazing aoe tower place him at 13 and watch mass (or even normal) waves melting down.
Holgar - kind of sort of carry, but his low attackspeed and overall very random passive make him hard to pull through (idk if it's still possible with the nerfed messerschmidt's)
Huli - can work both as a carry or stun support with high range, great attackspeed and high crit.
Money Bin - Awful damage and attackspeed so you should really only place this if you're way ahead at the moment, already have at least 5k gold and expect to require a lot of gold later on. (like for Laser pewpew)
Unique towers:
Balu the Bear - good aoe support which gains a lot of damage passively so he scales well into later levels.
Black Widow - Good item find support that can even dish out some damage just make sure you place her on a leveled spot. (I prefer 14/15 for her)
Blofeld Lazer - possible carry if you actually bother to get a bazillion gold beforehand otherwise useless.
Genesha - should hit any of your towers that do level up frequently which is why I recommend the 16 position. Key of Wisdom in this tower will see great benefit due to it leveling up rapidly. Top priority unique tower (kind of expensive though)
Knusperhexe - Anti Mass support - the aura makes her a definite must have besides handbags do well on her.
Horadric Cube - used to upgrade items just place it at 1 and throw in any unused items.
Manitou - make sure this hits you carry other towers don't really benefit from it (unless it's a noncarry muli maybe)
Muli the Evil Twin - it's like Huli times two. Super powerful stun tower as well as a possible carry. Just make sure you can actually afford his drinking habits (I recommend at least 5k gold and 1-2 hulis before building him)
The Dark Forge - Mostly good for creating fodder to feed to the Horadric Cube. To level it all it takes is to place a single Dark Forged item in Ganesha and wait for any tower to level up with the Dark Forge being in Ganesha's Aura range - just make sure to remove that item from Genesha when the level difference between the two is low or otherwise he will be unable to level
Summary:
Well rounded carry towers: Muli/huli , Shadow (fails against horsemen), Blofeld (if you're into saving gold all game), Scarecrow (still works as far as I can tell)
Viable, but funky carry towers: Black Widow (low range -> helm of hades pretty much necessary), Frog (slow, also needs helm), Holgar, Bear Hunter (Gib/Muli are pretty much a must have for cc - as well as 1-2 longbows to counter his weakness)
Important support towers:
AoE towers (for normal/mass waves): Balu, Bear Hunter (works really well with meat mallets) , Knusperhexe (mass only)
CC: Gib (that slow is pretty much uncontested -> amazing anti boss tower), Beaver/Huli/Muli (somewhat unreliable unless they're in high numbers)
Aura: Genesha (must have), Manitou (must have for carry once you reach ~50% crit), Black Widow (must have item find), Witch (as many as you can fit in), [Money Bank] (Blofeld support)
