Crusher (Tower)

## Crusher

### Description

Catches enemies and damages them before releasing them. Released enemies may avoid further Crushers

## Strengths

### 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** 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 + 3/Tower Experience Level [%]*

## Other Characteristics and Mechanics

**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.

## Stats

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

## Abilities

 4/7
 4/7
 10
 20

## 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.

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.

**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. Faster claw speed also allows to grab the same enemies more times, since each failed grab attempt can be followed up by the next one much sooner.

**Optimal 2 Abilities: Heavy vice / Increased capacity**

**Heavy vice** directly increases Crusher's damage output, allowing it to chew through enemies faster. It is useful for clearing enemies quickly. The downside is that it leaves disoriented enemies with less health, which makes them deal less damage to other enemies.

**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 50%, which makes grabbed enemies grant even more XP to the towers that damage them. While this ability can be used to quickly level up Crusher or other towers in early game, its effect is not very impactful and requires the Crusher to be placed near a portal, where it is least effective. Highly situational.

**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.

## 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.

**Damage** - Damage dealt to enemies

**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.

**Range** - Range in tiles

**Duration** - Duration of the tower

**Experience Multiplier** - Each XP is multiplied by this

**Price** - Tower price in Coins

**Upgrade price** - Price of tower upgrades in coins

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

**Starting level** - Initial starting level

**Experience Multiplier** - Each XP is multiplied by this

**Damage - Heavy vice** - Tower ability upgrade

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

**Bonus experience - Careful processing** - Tower ability upgrade

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

**Chance - Disorientation** - Tower ability upgrade

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

 Chance - Disorientation (max upgrade lvl)

**Bonus coins - Ultimate** - Tower ability upgrade

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

 Max coins

**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.