Crusher (Tower)

NEEDS TO BE UPDATED

Crusher
Description	Catches enemies and damages them before releasing them. Released enemies may avoid further Crushers
Price	200 coins
Available from level	6.4
Strengths
Regular	150%
Fast	100%
Strong	50%
Heli	0%
Jet	0%
Armored	50%
Healer	100%
Toxic	150%
Icy	50%
Fighter	50%
Light	150%
Bosses	100%

Crusher is a short ranged tower with the ability to immediately stop enemies by pulling them off the road and crushing them. It excels at finishing weak enemies. Building and upgrading consecutive Crushers scales in price.

Unique Characteristics

Crusher tower has Bonus experience and Shared damage as its unique characteristic.

Bonus experience determines how much bonus XP is granted to towers for damaging enemies affected by Crusher. For example, if a Sniper tower shoots an enemy affected by Crusher with Bonus experience of 50%, the Sniper will gain 50% more XP from that enemy. The Crusher that applied the effect can also benefit from it.

Bonus experience: 30 + ((XP Level - 1) * 3) [%]

Shared Damage is a damage multiplier from its Damage stat and then its damage is shared amongst enemies that were grabbed at the same time.

For example if shared damage is 75% and 3 enemies are grabbed, The total damage is 175% which is then divided by 3 such that each enemy takes 58.3% damage per second.

Shared Damage: 20 + ((XP Level - 1) * 2.5) [%]

Other Characteristics and Mechanics

Unlike other towers, Crusher shared the same traits with Miners / Modifiers where each subsequent Crusher built or upgraded at that upgrade level will have its cost increased.

Build price: Base price × (1 + (n^1.6)), where "n" is the number of Crushers already built.

Upgrade price: Base price × 1.2^n, where "n" is the number of Crushers already at this upgrade level.

Crusher has the Duration characteristic, which determines the maximum amount of time (in seconds) each enemy can be held for when grabbed.

Crusher has no attack speed characteristic. Instead, it will fire a claw projectile at enemies in range whenever it is able to fit them inside. It can grab a maximum of 2 enemies by default.

First attempt at grabbing an enemy is always successful. Every time an enemy gets grabbed by a Crusher, its chance to get grabbed again is reduced by 60%. Each enemy can be grabbed by the same Crusher multiple times. Grabbed enemies can still be targeted by other towers.

Crusher is unable to grab bosses, but it can grab Metaphor's creeps and Mobchain's body parts in its second phase.

While enemies are grabbed, each enemy takes damage equal to (Damage * Shared Damage) / Numbers of enemies grabbed every second until Duration time has finished. Once the enemy is grabbed for Duration seconds, it is then released back to the location where the enemy was grabbed.

Main characteristics

Range					✓
Attack speed					✓
Damage	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Crowd Damage					✓
Agility					✓

Stats

Range	1.2
Damage	109
Projectile speed	1.2
Duration	6.0
Bonus experience	30.0

Crusher Tower Stats (not including research, PWR from Exp Levels and Tile Bonuses)

Upgrade Level	Range	Damage	Projectile Speed	Duration	Upgrade Cost
0	1.2	109	1.2	6.0	42
1	1.2	136	1.4	6.5	63
2	1.3	167	1.5	7.0	115
3	1.3	216	1.5	7.0	210
4	1.4	267	1.6	7.5	300
5	1.4	360	1.7	8.0	420
6	1.4	467	1.7	8.5	850
7	1.5	611	1.8	9.0	1200
8	1.5	792	1.9	9.0	1950
9	1.6	1000	1.9	9.5	3000
10	1.7	1280	2.0	10.0	n/a

Abilities

XP LVL	Ability	Description
4/7	Heavy vice	Shared damage x1.4
4/7	Increased capacity	Can hold 3 enemies at once
4/7	Careful processing	XP bonus x1.7
10	Disorientation	Has 5% chance to force an enemy to walk towards a random Portal, dealing damage to enemies on the way (Upgrades with the tower) (unlocks on 10th level)
20	Ultimate	Disorientated enemies give 5 coins for each tile they were able to walk, max 300% of enemy's coin value
20	Powerful	PWR x1.1

Strategy

Crusher is a very powerful tower, able to quickly and reliably stop enemies from reaching the base. To prevent the player from building too many of them, the price of building and upgrading increases with each Crusher built.

Contrary to its single-target nature, Crusher deals more damage to enemies that tend to come in large groups (Regular, Fast, Toxic, Light) and struggles against tougher enemy types (Strong, Armored). This is why Crusher is best placed near the base, where it can finish weak units, since the sooner it kills grabbed enemies, the sooner it can grab new ones. With Ultimate ability, it also generates a lot of coins from disoriented enemies, as they travel all the way back to the portal. Since its range is very short, Crusher should be placed as close to the road as possible. It does not get projectile speed from research in which Crusher is not guaranteed to grab faster enemies as it may try to grab the enemy but the enemy might have escaped its range wasting the grab, This becomes more important in later waves. Freezing or Blast does alleviate this issue.

Crushers benefit from other Crushers as well as Blast which makes enemies take much longer to reach the base and can remove enemies off the path. Crushers Duration is not reduced by subsequent crusher, it only reduces the chances of being grabbed by other Crushers in general.

Enemies grabbed by Crusher can still be targeted by other towers, which further helps it kill held enemies and grab new ones. They also grant more experience, which makes other towers level up faster.

Because crusher grabs enemies in one spot, towers from Splash Damage become much more effective.

Crusher can deal with Constructor summoned enemies as it will be dragged off the path allowing single DPS towers like Sniper and Minigun to focus on Constructor.

Best tile placement: Damage / Power

Damage directly increases Crusher's damage output, allowing it to chew through enemies faster. Power can be more beneficial if the situation calls for longer holding duration instead of damage. Range can make up for Crusher's short reach, but should not be necessary if the tower is placed right next to the road. If there are no better tiles, Crusher can moderately benefit from Projectile speed, which allows for the claws to reach enemies faster, effectively making them start taking damage sooner.

Optimal 2 Abilities: Increased capacity / Careful processing

Heavy vice directly increases Crusher's damage output, allowing it to chew through enemies faster. It is useful for clearing enemies quickly.

Increased capacity is essential in every scenario, as it makes up for Crusher's lack of area damage by allowing it to hold 3 enemies at once. This ability should always be chosen as soon as possible.

Careful processing increases Crusher's Experience bonus characteristic by a lot, which makes grabbed enemies grant even more XP to the towers that damage them. This ability can be used to quickly level up Crusher or other towers at any point of the game, its effect is quite impactful and requires the Crusher to be placed near a portal, where it is most effective. Highly recommended.

Disorientation gives Crusher a small chance to turn grabbed enemies into "zombies", which makes them travel towards the portals and damage other enemies in its way. The damage dealt by disoriented enemies scales with their HP, making this ability very impactful in later waves.

Optimal Level 20 Ability: Ultimate

Ultimate allows Crusher to provide gold for enemies that move every tile providing a little bit of gold generation, and although not mentioned, it increases the effectiveness of zombies by x3. The only reason to consider Powerful is the extended duration, which allows Crusher to stall enemies for longer.

Endless Strategy

Compared to its normal counterpart

• Increased Capacity can grab up to 8 enemies at once allowing more enemies to be grabbed which reduces the amount of enemies that move along the map. As a result this allows towers to gain more experience but at the cost of reducing the damage output as the damage is shared amongst 8 enemies at maximum.
• Bonus Experience is improved allowing towers to gain more experience. With higher maximum experience level (150), bonus experience scaling becomes much more important.
• Shared damage increases its damage especially when one enemy is grabbed.
• Duration scaling with PWR allows crusher to hold onto enemies for much longer and makes the enemy take longer to reach the base especially with multiple crushers are built.
• Although Crusher does not get projectile speed in research, the global projectile speed helps Crusher be able to grab enemies from farther range and be able to catch them faster. It also provides a bit of range to be able to detect and catch enemies more consistently against faster enemies.

Crusher itself becomes much more viable in terms of grabbing 8 enemies at once allowing more enemies to be grabbed off the map the more. The increased duration thanks to PWR allows enemies to be grabbed for much longer. Crusher has no Duration limit in which it can be increased as much as it can.

Optimal 2 Abilities: Increased capacity / Careful processing

Same as normal Crusher. Increased Capacity is the first ability the player should get at level 4 which allows Crusher to get faster experience to get Increased Capacity.

This is mainly used alongside Gauss tower as a way for Gauss to rapidly gain experience especially when Self-Improvement ability is obtained.

Research

(Doesn't include endless research)

These research are exclusive to Crusher Tower Only. To see all researches, see Researches Max Upgrade Level - Upgrade Level Limit

Increases the max upgrade level of the tower (Upgrade level). At level 0, the max tower upgrade level is 3.

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Max Tower Upgrade Level	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10

Damage - Damage dealt to enemies

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Amount	+0%	+2%	+4%	+6%	+8%	+11%	+14%	+17%	+21%	+25%	+30%

Max Experience Level - Experience Limit in levels

Increases the max experience level of the tower (EXP level). At level 0, the max tower experience level is 4.

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Amount	4	5	6	7	9	10	12	14	16	18	20

Range - Range in tiles

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Amount	+0%	+1%	+2%	+3%	+4%	+5%	+6%	+8%	+10%	+12%	+15%

Duration - Duration of the tower

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Amount	+0%	+1%	+2%	+3%	+4%	+5%	+6%	+8%	+10%	+12%	+15%

Experience Multiplier - Each XP is multiplied by this

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Amount	+0%	+3%	+6%	+9%	+12%	+16%	+20%	+24%	+28%	+33%	+40%

Price - Tower price in Coins

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Crusher Tower Coins Build Cost	200	198	196	194	192	190	188	185	182	179	175

Upgrade price - Price of tower upgrades in coins

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Reduction	0%	-1%	-2%	-3%	-4%	-5%	-6%	-8%	-10%	-12%	-15%

Passive XP at max upgrade level - Amount of XP tower gets per second on max upgrade level

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5
XP/s	+0/s	+0.1/s	+0.2/s	+0.3/s	+0.4/s	+0.5/s

Starting level - Initial starting level

Level	0	1	2	3
Initial Tower EXP Level	1	2	3	4

Experience Multiplier - Each XP is multiplied by this

Level	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Bonus experience	+0%	+5%	+10%	+15%	+20%	+25%	+30%	+35%	+40%	+45%	+50%

Damage - Heavy vice - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of Damage - Heavy vice and adds it per level (Additive)

Level	0	1	2	3
Amount	+0%	+3%	+8%	+15%

Bonus experience - Careful processing - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of Bonus experience - Careful processing and adds it per level (Additive)

Level	0	1	2	3
Amount	+0%	+2%	+5%	+10%

Chance - Disorientation - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of Chance - Disorientation and adds it per level (Additive)

Level	0	1	2	3
Chance - Disorientation (min upgrade lvl)	+0%	+0.25%	+0.5%	+0.9%
Chance - Disorientation (max upgrade lvl)	+0%	+0.5%	+1%	+2%

Bonus coins - Ultimate - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of Bonus coins - Ultimate and adds it per level (Additive)

Level	0	1	2	3
Bonus coins	+0	+0.4	+1	+2
Max coins	+0%	+15%	+40%	+70%

First Generation - Significant Increase of Characteristics

- Damage +10%

Second Generation - Significant Increase of Characteristics

- Damage +5%

Third Generation - Significant Increase of Characteristics

- Damage 10%, Duration +5%

Trivia

• Crusher's sprites were present in the game's files since the earliest beta builds. It was scrapped in early development for requiring too much time to code, but the developer decided to finally introduce this tower in version 1.8.0.
• Crusher is the only tower with increasing price.
• Along with Flamethrower, Laser and Gauss, Crusher does not have the attack speed characteristic.
• Crusher's effectiveness against enemies, are all equal to or higher than Basic's effectiveness.