Ricochet Cannon

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"Builder has used one weird trick to develop a devastating cannonball that will ricochet and hit a second target."
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Construction
Level 1
Level 2
==Summary==
*The Ricochet Cannon is a defense that unlocks at Town Hall 16 and is constructed by merging two s at level 21 together.
**The merging process cannot be undone once the construction is started. The Ricochet Cannon cannot be split back into two Cannons.
**A Cannon that has been geared up cannot be selected for merging.
**Merging all of the Cannons into Ricochet Cannons to the Town Hall limit will be required to upgrade the Town Hall to the next level, similar to the "placing all of the buildings" requirement.
*Compared to two normal Cannons, the Ricochet Cannon starts off with just a bit less health and each shot deals more damage than the two combined.
**These metrics will keep improving as it levels up while the normal Cannons stop getting new levels, extending the usefulness of merging.
*When attacking opponents, the Ricochet Cannon fires a cannonball at a target within its range, just like a normal Cannon. However, the projectile ricochets to a second target if there exists one within 4 tiles of the initial target, they can even be outside of the normal range of the Ricochet Cannon. The target will take the same amount of damage as the first one did. Note that if there are no valid targets, the ricochet does not hit the original target again.
**With this ability, the range of Ricochet Cannon can be up to 13 tiles situationally, and the starting damage output is usually more than four times stronger than a Cannon when there is more than one target close by.
==Strategies==
===Defensive Strategies===
*It does well against ground Heroes, as it will target the Hero first and then hit the Pet behind them, damaging both the Hero and the Pet.
**It is also good against the usual tank-damage dealer combo if the tank and damage dealer are too close to be damaged.
**However, this is not the case if the targeted Hero is paired with the Phoenix (when in egg form), Electro Owl or Angry Jelly, since the latter two are aerial Pets.
*It is as durable than two Cannons and deals more than twice the damage per shot, thus making it a good counter to medium troops and significant damage to clumps of ground troops. 
**It can even shred small swarms, which makes it a versatile and effective defense overall.
*When paired with a Rage Spell Tower, it will deal significant amounts of damage to ground troops due to its high-damage increase.
**It could be positioned with some anti-air defenses since it cannot target air units, and the buildings around it can help distract, allowing more damage to be dealt.
*This defense should be placed in the center or the core area of the base, due to its huge tanking potential and high damage per shot. Its ricochet shot can even help extend its range when there are valid targets.
===Offensive Strategies===
*Air Troops such as Balloons and Dragons can counter a Ricochet Cannon easily, as it is unable to target them. Protect it by placing anti-air defenses such as Wizard Towers and Air Bombs to clear hordes and Air Defenses and Seeking Air Mines to target high-hitpoint units such as Dragons.
*Single big troops such as the P.E.K.K.A and Root Rider can counter this defense, but put your support troops far enough, else the Ricochet Cannon might hit them.
*Since this defense deals a lot of damage to your troops, you can use a Freeze Spell to stop it from firing temporarily, Invisibility Spell to turn your troops invisible, or an Overgrowth Spell to disable it.
==Upgrade Differences==
*The Ricochet Cannon undergoes significant visual changes when constructed and at level 2.
**When both Cannons are merged, only the base appears and the Cannon itself is not completed yet, the base is much taller than the base of Cannons. It is made out of gray patterned metal with the rotational mount on full display, the axle is surrounded by a brass ring and around it is a metal ring sectioned into eight pieces. The corners are like pillars, shaped like half of an octagon, with a spike on the side facing out, and are wider at the base. Between each pillar, there is a dark gray metal triangular prism, the top slants down as it points outward and have a V-shaped groove for a brass lining. The pillars and prisms are on top of a dark gray metal plate, matching the shape of the pillars and straight across the sides connecting the pillars. At the base, each corner has the same shape as the pillar but expanded, forming a step, on top of it is a brass lining across the side of the plate; on the sides under the lining, there are two small protrusions holding the lining up. Tree roots cover the metal ring on the left, then splits and cover the sides of the left pillar, and stops on the plate; another starts at the front right of the ring, immediately splits to follow the edge of the front and right pillar, and stops on the ground, a leaf sprouts from the left root; all of the roots curl up when they end.
**When constructed, the large Cannon barrel is placed on top of the axle. The main body is made of metal and the barrel is shaped like an octagon, covered by a piece of red wood on each side and secured by two brass rings that follow the shape of barrel: The front ring connects to the neck of the cannon at the diagonal sides with a rivet on top, forming a trapezoid as the front narrows; the back ring has a rivet on each side and a groove on the diagonal sides, it connects to the back with a curved horizontal piece to a circular plate - with a thin layer of red wood and a brass rivet - to hold all eight wood pieces together at the back. Both sides of the barrel are covered by curled roots with a leaf in the middle. The neck sharply narrows when the front brass ring exposes the metal barrel, then trims three times. The muzzle is circular and reinforced with a brass ring. Unlike the Cannon, the inside no longer shines.
**At level 2, all of the brass is replaced with gold. The connecting pieces of the front ring expanded to the red wood pieces, pointing back and forming a pentagon, each piece has a gold plate on top with a thin layer of red wood and a gold spike. The muzzle ring has four small pentagonal connecting pieces to the neck on the orthogonal sides. The spikes on the corner pillars are also replaced with gold and has a thin diamond plate around it.
*The appearance of the cannonball changes after the merge.
**At level 1, the cannonball is much bigger, with molten metal and the trailing particles glow yellow, and there are yellow cracks that form randomly on the surface but no longer has spikes.
==Statistics==
Level	Damage per Second	Damage per Shot	Hitpoints	Build Cost	Build Time	Experience Gained	Town Hall Level Required
1 	360 	288 	5,400 	20,000,000	14d 	1,099 	16
2 	390 	312 	5,700 	22,000,000	15d 12h 	1,157 	16
Range	Attack Speed	Damage Type 	Unit Type Targeted
9 	0.8s 	Single Target	Ground
==History==
Patch 	Description
December 6, 2023 	Announced the Ricochet Cannon, with 2 levels.
December 12, 2023	Added the Ricochet Cannon.
Category:Buildings
Category:Defenses
Category:Home Village