Finally, crossed the rank 13 wall I was hitting on my main account to receive a much needed chest. I got pretty upset in being matched against some terrible bases that made it hard to progress. But eventually I got paired against some similar opponents with not-to-great bases and hit rank 13 on my main account this morning.
What the combined effort allowed me to do was put down 2 more Boom Cannons from last night and unlock Barrages but this morning max out my Barrage. That did allow me to get a few good wins on my main account. My next goal for the chest is to unlock Shock Launchers. I’m probably going to initially aim for Rank 4 on those as I will be able to get two, which ought to severely annoy opponents.
From there, I plan to stick in 4ER for a bit longer. I think the second GBE node earlier up in the tree is going to make a HUGE difference in battles. I’m undecided about the Cannon node but it’s tempting just because it’ll force me to farm up more upgrade tokens along the way where I can invest it into Rank5 Shock Launchers. I might have to get Mortars as well. I’ve read bad things about 5ER especially with Seekers becoming available. One person mentioned that you shouldn’t move to 5ER without having enough keys to also unlock Shock Mines. I might be forced to unlock Incinerators if things get hairy just to grab Troop Damage. I’ve heard good things about Incinerators but I’m not keen on investing into another troop at this stage outside of Heavy Choppas and Heavies.
I think if I can bulk my base up in 4ER, I might be able to rank up a bit. Outside of Heavies, there really isn’t any good troops that are fast enough at that stage. So having a fat base might be the key for a low skill player like me. I am liking the minimal troop loss with tanks though. If I had gone Heavy rush, I would have probably still had the same win-loss ratio of 50% or so yet I wouldn’t have been able to complete the upgrades in the same time frame just because of how I never fizzle with tanks.
One thing I will say is that Critter Cannons by themselves are really bad. They’re definitely a better support troop. Their best use case is taking down mine clusters and confusing hard hitting defenses like Boom Cannons. But to maximize their usage you need to shock defenses like Rocket Launchers and Flame Throwers. My technique is to get a small cluster of counter Critters to take out mines and any hard hitting defenses. If Boom Cannons are near clusters of AoE type defenses, I’ll shock those to allow the Critters to get more damage in. Otherwise, you’ll just wait forever before you can do enough damage against short ranged AoE defenses.
One thing I did though was avoid Smoke Screens. I think I would backtrack if I planned to use Seekers. But they aren’t worth it. Another troop that is a complete waste is Medics. I saw on guy use them but it doesn’t really make sense here since Dr Kavan is enough for healing your troops. Also, you can reload your troops fast enough each battle where Medics really don’t do any good.
The big Dr Kavan ability here is Ice Shields. If you’re a tank player, your biggest issue is coming across large clusters of Boom Cannons and normal Cannons or mines. While shocks do help, the better thing in these cases is just to use Ice Shields, especially when Shock Bombs get too expensive. In this manner, you can face tank (literally) all those defenses while your Critter Cannons get in position to fire several salvos worth of Critters. Then those hard hitting defenses should be distracted enough for your tanks to take out enough of them.
With any luck, I’ll be able to hit Rank 14 on my main account today. It feels like momentum swings all the time in this game. But my base is getting to the point where I think it’s holding its own. Also, Barrage I think is going to come in very handy along with getting 100% GBE.