A MEGA Guide to the uses of Ray and Grenade Towers!

[Megadramon]

The MEGA Guide to the uses of Ray and Grenade Towers!

By: Megadramon

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i. Disclaimer:

This guide assumes the reader has some knowledge and experience on tower reselling, and that in order to take advantage of the Ray and Grenade Towers, as well as this guide, you must be building and reselling the towers in preparation for each wave. It's possible to only rely on Rays and Grenades up until around level 20, after that I recommend you start using your elements. Many of the things said in this guide are based on my experiences. Please do not interpret them as hard facts about the game.

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ii. Preface:

Not many people know the technical differences between Ray and Grenade tower, and many of you most likely don’t use these towers properly. I feel that in order to enjoy the game more, you’ll have to be educated in the fundamentals of Element TD, starting with the uses of the Ray and Grenade towers. Knowing this information will allow you to play on Hard or Very Hard, as knowing the technical differences in the towers are necessary for getting through the early parts of the harder difficulties. For Normal and below, you can probably get away with just massing the Grenade tower. By making this guide, my goal is not only to educate players on how to use these towers effectively, but to also create room for discussion about gameplay on the forums, as well as to continue on with more extensive material in the future. All this being said, please look forward to the rest of the guide!

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iii. Introduction:

Hello everyone, this will be my first real strategy guide about Element TD, aside from the guide I made about how to download the game on Starcraft II. I have a lot of information about the game I’d like to share with you, and I apologizing for not sharing sooner, as I’m aware there aren’t many guides out there to help those who are looking for help. As a veteran player, I feel some responsibility to help educate players on the proper ways of playing Element TD. I hope that by starting with the basics, I can continue making more extensive guides in the future to help the growth of the game, and to provide some discussion about gameplay on these forums, as well as increasing your general knowledge of the game.

Firstly, you may be wondering about who the hell I am. Well as you can see, I’m part of the Development Team for Element TD. I play on the North American server on the ID sVFairyTail#598. sV is just the Vent/Mumble server I go on which stands for Seasoned Veterans. Anyways, I beta tested Element TD for WC3; though because back then I was also a big fan of DotA, I played more DotA than Element TD, thus I was not as active back then. Now that Element TD is back on Starcraft II, I’ve returned here to help out if need be, and excited as ever. I’ve known Element TD for 4 years, but to be honest, I think I’ve been the most active with the project on Starcraft II. Like I said earlier, being a veteran player and all, I feel it’s part of my duty to help players learn in order to develop the map, and to create more discussion. I’m also aware on how very little people are able to play the game properly. Element TD is indeed a hard game, it’s also very unique which makes it so appealing. I know a fair bit about the game, and I’d like to debut with a guide on the fundamental Ray and Grenade towers.

Let’s begin!

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Contents

1. Statistics

2. Creeps

3. The Ray Tower

4. The Grenade Tower

5. Summary

6. Final Words

7. Replay/Video

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1. Statistics

Ray Tower

Type: Composite

Cost: 7

Damage: 2

Speed: 1.5

Range: 12

AOE: -

Advanced Ray Tower

Type: Composite

Cost: 20

Damage: 6

Speed: 1.5

Range: 12

AOE: -

Optimum Ray Tower

Type: Composite

Cost: 57

Damage: 18

Speed: 1.5

Range: 12

AOE: -

Elemental Ray Tower

Type: Light, Dark, Water, Fire, Nature, or Earth

Cost: 168

Damage: 54

Speed: 1.5

Range: 12

AOE: -

Grenade Tower

Type: Composite

Cost: 7

Damage: 1

Speed: 1.5

Range: 8

AOE: 1.5/3

Advanced Grenade Tower

Type: Composite

Cost: 20

Damage: 3

Speed: 1.5

Range: 8

AOE: 1.5/3

Optimum Grenade Tower

Type: Composite

Cost: 57

Damage: 9

Speed: 1.5

Range: 8

AOE: 1.5/3

Elemental Grenade Tower

Type: Light, Dark, Water, Fire, Nature, or Earth

Cost: 168

Damage: 27

Speed: 1.5

Range: 8

AOE: 1.5/3

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2. Creeps

As you probably already know, creeps have different abilities. These abilities affect what type of towers you want to make. Below are the following creep abilities:

Fast - Every 3 seconds, this creep moves 2.5x faster for 1 second.

Healing - This creep heals nearby creeps for 20% of Max HP when killed.

Image - This creep spawns an image when attacked. Image lasts 5 seconds.

Mechanical - Every 12 seconds, this creep becomes invulnerable for 3 seconds.

Undead - This creep will revive after 3 seconds with 33% of Max HP when killed.

Later on, I will explain what towers to build against which creep abilities.

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3. The Ray Tower

The Ray Tower is a single target tower, effective against single targets. The advantage it has over the grenade tower is that it has more damage, and higher range. The disadvantage compared to the grenade tower is that it has no AOE. Use these towers against single units like bosses, or stray leaks. These towers aren't ideal for killing units en mass.

Ray Tower Strengths

Bosses:

Since a boss is just a single target, you don’t need AOE to kill them. Grenade towers are weak in damage with short range, making Grenade Towers an ineffective tower for killing them. Ray Towers on the other hand have higher damage towards a single unit with longer range, making them ideal.

Fast:

Because fast creeps gain bonus movement speed every few seconds, they tend to separate, negating AOE damage done by grenade towers. Not only that, but since they are faster, they are able to escape the radius of Grenade Towers more easily due to grenade tower's shorter range. Ray Towers have a longer range, thus lessening the burden of their speed; because speed creeps can separate, single targeting is ideal against them.

Mechanical:

Since mechanical creeps can go invulnerable, they are able to minimize damage around towers with shorter range. Against towers with longer range, it's harder for these creeps to escape damage. Mechanical creeps also negate AOE by going invulnerable beside creeps that are being shot at, reducing damage output from grenade towers. With longer range, and more damage towards a single target, Ray Towers are perfect against these waves.

Healing:

Whenever a healing creep dies, it will heal 20% of max hp to near by creeps. This type of creep is tricky. You either want to micro, and focus them one at a time with ray towers, or kill them all simultaneously with AOE, disallowing the chance to heal nearby creeps when they die. Through my experiences, it’s hard to tell which is the most effective method, though one thing I can tell you is that if you’re about to leak grouped up red health healing creeps, you’re gonna want to kill them off with AOE, and not single target towers or else they will be a nightmare to kill, constantly healing each other one by one, eventually getting back to full health.

Ray Tower Weaknesses

Normal:

Though there’s nothing wrong with using ray towers against normal creep, it’s much more effective just to use grenade towers, they out damage creep waves more than ray towers. Since normal creeps have no special features to make them anti-AOE, there’s no reason not to use the grenade tower.

Illusion:

Because illusion creeps create illusions whenever they’re attacked, it causes the chance of ray towers to waste a shot, essentially lowering DPS towards the creep wave. Using grenade towers ignores the worries of wasted shots through AOE damage.

Undead:

Undead are basically like normal creeps, except they can revive, so it’s just natural to build grenade towers for these creeps. Not only that, but undead creeps stack more easily since they revive on top of each other, maximizing the effectiveness of AOE grenade towers. Ray Tower just aren't as effective against masses of units. Undead units revive, giving the Ray Tower more creeps to deal with.

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4. The Grenade Tower

The Grenade Tower is an AOE target tower effective at clearing waves en mass. The advantage this tower has over the Ray Tower is that it has AOE which deals more damage to creep waves in it’s AOE, than a Ray Tower does to a single creep. The disadvantage this tower has over the Ray Tower is that it has less damage with shorter range. This is generally the main tower you want to use for killing creep waves. The problem with some waves is that they have special abilities to prevent the effectiveness of grenade towers. Use these towers wisely.

Grenade Tower Strengths

Normal:

Since grenade towers naturally deal more damage to creeps en mass, it’s just more effective to use grenade towers on them. Normal creeps have no special ability allowing you to use the Grenade Tower without worry.

Illusion:

Illusion creeps create juxtaposed illusions when they get hit. To a grenade tower, this ability becomes futile. Illusions can make all the illusions they want, they'll still die easily to grenades. Grenade Towers are the obvious choice for these waves.

Undead:

Since undead creeps like to revive on top of each other, and re mass once they die, grenade towers are the recommended choice. If you were to build Rays against these, they will simply just get too overwhelmed. The weakness to undead creep is the fact that they like to die on top of each other, and then revive again on top of each other. The more units in a single area, the stronger grenade towers are.

Healing:

Like I said before, I’m not too sure about this creep wave myself. I just know that it’s best to kill chunks at once, so they die before they get healed. This wave is up for discussion.

Grenade Tower Weaknesses

Bosses:

Since a boss is just one unit, the sacrifice of damage for AOE is pointless, making the grenade tower ineffective against bosses. Bosses are also able to escape the radius of grenade towers more easily due to their shorter range. Grenade towers have shorter range, and less damage making Grenade Towers a terrible choice against bosses.

Fast:

Since fast creeps are able to spread out, they are able to avoid AOE damage done by grenade towers. Their speed also allows them to escape the radius of any short range tower more easily, minimizing damage. With fast creeps being able to run past grenade towers and separating to lessen AOE damage, Grenade towers aren't ideal for these creeps.

Mechanical:

Though these creeps don’t spread out like fast creeps do, instead they can go invulnerable, forcing the grenade towers to target a couple units at a time while at the same time negating AOE. With the ability to go invulnerable, short range towers may never have a chance to even hit them. The lower the range the less chance the grenade tower has to hit them, especially with invulnerability, you have a much lower % chance to hit them. Even if grenade towers do hit them, it wouldn't do as much damage to them compared to a ray tower, especially considering that the creep(s) next to it may go invulnerable.

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5. Summary

With different types of creeps, it’s necessary to cycle between the uses of grenade and ray towers to kill them more effectively and efficiently. The ray and grenade towers have their different uses, and this is important if you want to be able to play competently in the early stages of the game. On the easier difficulties, you can survive well without this knowledge, but if you’re planning on trying to tackle hard, or very hard, you will need to know what towers are good against which creeps, and how to effectively/efficiently defend against them. Also keep in mind that grenade and ray towers are not just for the first 20 or so levels. They are still great towers to build later in the game to add more DPS to your build. They are cheap towers with 100% sell rate. If you want to throw money at a specific wave, but don't want to suffer from the 75% refund in all pick, mass a bunch of grenades or rays and upgrade them accordingly.

Once you are able to kill creep waves effectively and efficiently, you will become more comfortable with selling most of your towers during waves to get the most out of your interest rate.

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6. Final Words

I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to read this guide. I hope this guide has helped you understand the differences between grenade and ray towers. My goal for this guide was to help players further understand the game; to encourage proper play, as well as encouraging discussion. Please, if you disagree with anything I've talked about in this guide, post your comment here, and I may correct some things. Because there aren't many guides about the game, most of the information in this guide came from hours of experience playing on Very Hard.

Thank you for your time.

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7. Replay/Video

I've uploaded a video of me playing on Very Hard for the first 15 minutes. The quality is not great, but I don't think it's terrible either. I just found out that Procaster is able to capture your screen, so I used that to record.

I've uploaded a different game but of much higher quality!

Here's the second part of that game of a somewhat better quality.

[Arc Project]

Thank you! My early game improved a lot after reading this guide.

The section about different use of grenade and ray towers was particularly enlightening.

Thumbs up

[Megadramon]

I'm glad it helped.

[bestmannen]

I'm glad it helped.

nice guide! do you have any replays?

[Megadramon]

Replays are bugged, so you'd only get the first 7 mins or so until the replay will crash on you.

I've uploaded youtube videos instead.

Once replays start working, I'll post some.

[bestmannen]

Replays are bugged, so you'd only get the first 7 mins or so until the replay will crash on you.

I've uploaded youtube videos instead.

Once replays start working, I'll post some.

the mid-game is missing from the video thou.

[Megadramon]

Yeah it was my first time working with fraps and sony vegas...

The main point of the guide and videos were about the uses of ray and grenade towers.

I hope they were of help regarding those topics.

It's a pain to make and upload the videos because of the time it takes to render everything and the upload time, and even then I'm only limited to 15 mins which isn't even close to a full game, so it's a lot of effort just for parts of a game. If I could get like a 30 minute video that would help a lot and it'd make it even more possible to upload a full game, though uploading a 30 minute game footage to youtube may take a whole day for me due to my crappy upload.

[bestmannen]

aww, too bad. I've been doing some Minecraft Videos with fraps + vegas and uploading is a pain.