Footguns

## Overview

Footguns are upgrades that can set your account behind and may take months to years to correct if it can be corrected. In the current state of the game, most footguns will lower your maximum potential but will not completely take away your ability to compete with other.

Footguns are not misallocation of resources such as: waiting to unlock 5 labs, failing to do tournaments and missing stones or unlocking wall early and needing to respec.

## Ultimate Weapons:

UW picks are permanent (although you will eventually have them all). Further, UW upgrades are permanent and cannot be undone. Be careful in the following situations:

### Choosing an ultimate weapon

Why: Choosing ultimate weapons cannot be reversed and picking new Ultimate Weapons get more expensive. Taking weaker UWs early when there are better choice can set your account further behind.

Solution: This can be corrected by unlocking more UWs. This can become an expensive process. To avoid this footgun, use the UW guide.

### Any Black Hole (stone) upgrade

Why:

1. BH Size can safely be upgraded to 44-60m without harm. Going above these values can make it so enemies are out of range of orbs and thus make it harder to kill enemies to get the BH bonus.
2. BH Cooldown can be harmful to upgrade without GT in sync. By lowering cooldown, it becomes more expensive to get GT to a 1:1 sync ratio. For more on why you want this see Coin Guide

Solution:

1. If you exceed 60m, you can fix this by unlocking all 9 UWs to get BH+. The Consume ability has a secret effect that pulls enemies into the center of BH faster. This will cost thousands of stones and will make getting other UW+ more expensive. It recommending to avoid needing to do this until you are ready to do so intentionally.
2. BH cooldown will eventually self correct, you will either spend enough to get GT to match 1:1 or BH will max and have its best sync with a max GT cooldown at 2:1.

### Changing the cooldown of any ultimate weapon

Why: There are many strategies that require UWs to be synced even if the UWs don't seem to pair. For example, there is a version of devo that uses SM to weaken enemies and extend it. Having SM timed correctly is required for this strat. Check what strategies exist and what syncs are needed before upgrading cooldowns.

Solution: Check what strategies exist and what syncs are needed before upgrading cooldowns. There are occasions where 1:1 syncs are not required but many do require it, missing these can lock you out of certain strategies.

## Lab upgrades:

Lab upgrades are permanent and (except for range) cannot be turned off once acquired. Currently, the only labs where more upgrades may be worse than fewer upgrades are:

### Shockwave size

Why: Large shockwaves will knock enemies out of orb range while BH is active. This is harmful to many strategies

Solution: Forgo free upgrades to adjust Shockwave where you need it.

### All the bot frequency upgrades

See Bot section of this page for more details

### Black Hole damage (note: this is generally a good upgrade)

Why: Certain strategies want enemies to stay alive until certain conditions are met. Damage is often more of a concern with Min cooldown but can be harmful in some instances.

Solution: Often times the pros of having max damage will offset the harm toward these strategies. Understanding which strategies you plan to use and how BH damage will work with them is the best prevention.

### CF range

Why: CF Range zooms out the screen which causes enemies to spawn further from the tower and take longer to be killed. This upgrade lowers CPH.

Solution: The difference in CPH is minimal and often is outweighed by the benefit in tournaments. You will eventually want to max this lab.

### Wall Rebuild

Why: There are 3 used sets of wall rebuild times synced with Bosses used with 2 being used most often: 588 or 586 is used for relic runs without WA. 510 is the ideal wall rebuild time for tournaments and requires exactly 9 levels in wall rebuild.

Solution: This cannot be reversed. You will need to give up free upgrades to hit these times. It is possible to use lvl 10 for relics with WA since the timing is 504, you can try and use 500 in tournaments with some success but ultimately, you should avoid researching beyond lvl 9.

## Bots:

Each bot purchase increases the cost of the remaining bots. Further, all bot upgrades are permanent and cannot be undone. Be careful in the following situations:

### Purchasing a new bot

Why: Just like purchasing UWs, buying bots raises the price of getting the next bot and the purchase is permanent.

Solution: You will need to buy more bots if you already have purchased a weaker bot. The best way to prevent this footgun is to use the Medals Guide.

### Upgrading the frequency of any bot

Why: Bots can be synced to certain events to make their abilities get used at an optimal time. This mostly just applies to Gold Bot and Amp Bot, however there are theories that if found could make Thunder Bot also require a specific frequency.

Solution: Ask for help from Discord or Reddit after upgrading Range and Bonus to a strong level. Syncing is not the most important upgrade to the bot so prioritize the other upgrades. There will eventually be a guide to help with bots added to the wiki.