Money and Life Towers

[WindStrike]

The following guide demonstrates how to use Money (Light+Earth+Fire) and Life (Light+Nature) towers. Both towers are sometimes regarded as underpowered, but the actuality is that these towers lead to some of the most powerful defenses due to the advantages they provide.

Placements

This where people have the most trouble, and they are primary cause of why these towers feel a lot weaker than they really are. 16 range towers can't exactly reach just anywhere, and since Money and Life towers shoot really slow (1.5 fire rate), having them trying to shoot the most space possible will result in a total of maybe 15-20 hits, whereas a double-pass spot can land about 30 hits. Additionally, their effects are based on the kill, so it's wasteful to try and mass a bunch of them. Instead, you'll only want a handful - no more than 3 money towers or no more than 6 life towers.

First Placement

Your first placement should be on the right side, a few spaces from the top. If you're in single-player and the tower is capable of one-hit killing the targets, there's a way to selectively target the enemies such that you're able to solo an entire round with that tower in that spot. However, it must one-hit kill, and it must be a Normal, Image or Healing round. Mechanical has a tendency to block you, Undead is obvious, and Fast ends up having too many get by you. When they come in on the first pass (going through the middle), kill every other enemy. However, about 4 or 5 kills in, let two of them group together, and then proceed back to killing every other enemy. You should be able to kill everything on the right side. Don't try this in multiplayer, as other people are likely to be killing the waves way faster than that.

Second & Third Placements

In that image, you're able to see two more placements. The one on the right would be your second placement, like a mirror of the one on the top side. Now, that third spot in the bottom-left... if you take a look at the image closely, the money tower is just barely able to hit targets that are just starting to enter the middle area. I like to call this the "sniper location". Not only does it hit the largest area (able to pull off about 25 hits and focus fire Level 2's and Level 3's down), but if the enemies coming into the middle are weak enough, it can one-shot snipe them from that location.

For the record, the same spots apply to Life Towers. You may need to grab up to a total of 6 of them for them to be as effective, though it's your choice. Tower #4 would go just below the first location, Tower #5 would go just above the second location, and Tower #6 would go just to the right of the third location. Don't bother going above 3 Money towers and don't go above 6 Life towers. If you need more killing power, use other towers that will have better late-game usage.

Money Tower Strategies

These towers are awesome because of their super single target damage. They're great for picking stragglers off and amazing versus Level 2 and 3 Elemental Bosses (Two Wealth Towers will kill a level 3 if you get it right after round 35, Three for right after round 40). However, the best part are the dual towers that come with it. You have Electric (Light+Fire) for covering the elemental weakness that Money Towers have. Knows those Life Tower Placements #4-6? Your Electric towers would go there, and honestly, you wouldn't want more than that. Quark Towers (Light+Earth) are downright amazing for softening the creeps so that your Money Towers can pick them off and give you that extra gold. And to top it off, if you're suddenly not one-hit killing creeps, fix that problem with Forge Towers. It may only cover a wave or two, but once you've got Level 3 Forge Towers (Factory), you'll be set through 45, at which point you can grab Level 3 Light and upgrade your Quark and Electric Towers to Level 3 and be set for life until round 55.

Now, Money Towers don't last forever. Once they start taking 10+ hits to kill something, they suck, so by round 56, they're pretty much worthless - you might as well sell them, and although you only have 75% sell, the amount of money you've racked up through Money Towers far outweighs the small waste you're going to make. Additionally, you should have another two element picks by now - I'd recommend either Nature 2 or Water 2 (Dark 2 gives you nothing but four triple damage towers). If you pick Nature 2, you'll be using Quake/Quark towers to soften the waves while Nova slows them and Enchantment amplifies the damage taken. Unfortunately, this doesn't leave much for the single target department, so fill up on as many locations with Quake/Quark/Nova as you can (should be a maximum of 3) and let the last of your money be spent on two Pure Light towers, which should be somewhere in the middle.

If you went Water 2, you get Ion Towers to slow them down and Polar Towers to lop off some hitpoints temporarily - that said, DEFINITELY use Pure Light towers and have them shoot the ones that are severely weakened from the Polar Towers. Quark Towers can soften enemies down a bunch while you have a payload of Haste Towers ready to slaughter the remainder. Although you don't get any actual splash damage, Haste Towers are the highest single-target damage tower in the game, so giving them extra time with the Ion Towers slowing creeps down is a huge help.

Life Tower Strategies

I'm personally not as fond of Life Towers because although they're cheaper than Money Towers, they're lower damage per hit (but same damage/cost ratio), and that gold bonus is honestly better than a life bonus (unless you're going for 4 pure lights) because your defense becomes a lot stronger than someone with a weaker defense, despite the number of lives. However, they can still work really well, because the towers they combo with are awesome. Since you're getting at least 2 Level 3 Elements, you'll want a 4-element build, meaning Well or Trickery. Trickery isn't the best idea because your damage types don't have the best variety, and Disease towers are meant to be the finishing blow... kinda contradictory to Life Towers. So you'll want to go for Well. With this path, you'll have your Life Towers in their nice positions, Ice Towers (stick no more than a total of 4 as far left as possible on the middle island), and Torrent Towers, your best friend. You don't need more than two of them, ever. Put a maximum of two in the middle and micromanage their Douse effect. Since you'll want your Life Towers to make the killing blow, you can do this two ways:

• Weaken the entire wave to pretty much near death. This may require a bit of calculation in your head, so if you're not good with that, try the next one.
• Kill about 2/3rds to 3/4ths the wave. The torrent towers themselves do crap damage outside of Douse and will just be charging up their Douse with pretty much senseless attacks. The remainder of the wave will be picked off by Life Towers, and since your Ice Towers are weakening them, you shouldn't have a problem killing them (unless they're fire, in which case nuke them all with the Torrent Towers).

Then, Well Towers fix everything. In fact, if you time things well enough, you don't need more than one Torrent Tower, so long as you have a Level 2 Well tower backing it up. Life Towers are just like Money Towers in that they become absolutely useless starting round 56. At this point, you should have a Level 2 of another element - don't get Dark 2 with this, you'll end up with nothing but Damage Towers (unless you like the idea of spamming Hail Towers). With Fire 2, you'll get double slowing (Nova + Ion), but unfortunately, both Celerity and Torrent are rather weak in the late game (Fruit Round). It's hard to rely on Ice Towers because of their limited positions. That said, Earth 2 is probably your best bet. Polar and Enchantment towers give you double damage amplifications while your Pure Natures and Ephemeral Towers can take care of the weakened targets. Anything that lived the first pass for regular rounds won't live the second pass. Your Torrent towers aren't the best, but they'll clear Round 57 for you (Fire+Image), and if you manage them properly, you can do a good amount of damage against the Fruit Round.

Tips

With Money and Life Towers, you'll want to conserve gold. That said, use as few towers as possible (this goes for every build, actually). Just because you now have a bunch of a good placements doesn't mean you should use them all as fast as possible. It's unnecessary, wasteful, and (especially with Money Towers) you won't get much from interest, which gives you a lot more than you might think (*cough*). Just go one spot at a time and diversify your towers. For Money, aim for a second Money Tower before you get a second Quark or Electric Tower. Same for Life before getting a second Torrent or Ice Tower.

Both of these are best with 4 element builds, and that's because you'll get Well or Forge, thus maximizing the usefulness of Money and Life towers. Otherwise, they'd pretty much lose all usefulness by the mid 40's, and you don't want to be selling towers at that point, as it's too wasteful too early.

I hope this guide was helpful to people, and if you didn't read the whole thing (long walls of text), at the very least, check out the placements. These will help immensely.