Deadly Striker Tower

## Icon

The **Deadly Striker Tower (DST)** is the Apprentice's fifth and final defense (unlocked at level 15).

This sniper tower fires fast-moving shots that pass through walls to hit a single target for massive physical damage. The DST has the longest range of all defenses in the game, but has a slow attack rate and low amount of health.

## Target Priority

Deadly Strikers also have unique enemy target priority. They weigh stronger enemy types to attack over the weaker ones, though they can attack less prioritized foes if they get close enough to the tower. The table below is a list of all known priority rankings for the DST:

DST Target Priority (from Highest to Lowest)
Goblin Copter, Spider
Kobold, Wyvern

## Tips

* For Rift Mode, Fused Deadly Strikers are extremely powerful to take down the rifted Nightmare enemies, Ogres and Dark Elf Warriors fast. It is highly recommended to collect a synthesized primitive armor set first to unlock this defense before going after any other fusion sets for additional fusion defenses.
	+ Fused DSTs have their use outside of Rift Mode too, ignoring any physical resistance a fleeing Siren may spread to high-priority targets.
* Right before starting the wave in Survival, a player can Overcharge a pack of DSTs, switch to a different hero from their deck and then start the Combat Phase. With this trick, the boosted towers will have a hyper-fast attack speed for the first few seconds. This is especially useful if the wave starts with any immediate ogre and/or copter spawns.

## Stats

The Deadly Striker costs 150 mana to place and requires 8 defense units, making it the most expensive defense in DD:A, currently.

On Massacre difficulty, the DST's range is reduced by 30%.

After 2,000 rune power in rune of fortify, the benefits of additional rune power start to look more linear (with diminishing returns).

After 2,500 rune power in rune of power, the benefits of additional rune power start to look more linear (with diminishing returns).

After 3,500 rune power in rune of range, the benefits of additional rune power start to look more linear (with diminishing returns).

After 2,000 rune power in rune of defense rate, the benefits of additional rune power start to look more linear (with diminishing returns).

These stats are sourced from here.

## Abnormalities

* This tower is subject to the effective 5 shots/second attack rate limit which it shares with several other defenses. Any listed attack rate below 0.2 seconds will **not** increase the Deadly Striker Tower's damage/second.
	+ Any chance of achieving a fire rate this frequent consistently for a DST requires multiple speed-boosting effects: from an Overclock Beam, Speedy Gemstone and the Apprentice's Overcharge ability.
	+ Right before starting the next Combat Phase, the player can Overcharge surrounding DSTs, then switch to a different hero, resulting in an usually fast attack rate for the first few seconds of the wave. It is safe to swap heroes once the Apprentice slams his staff to the 'ground' to unleash the empowered Arcane Surge. This trick is most effective when any ogres or goblin copters are going to spawn immediately.

## In Other DD Games

### Dungeon Defenders I

DSTs in their debut title have a less flexible target priority system. Instead of supposedly every enemy type possessing its own weight value, only a select list of enemies have increased priority. Djinn are weighed the most by a factor of 5.0, followed by Wyverns at 4.5. Dark Elf Mages have the lowest weight above 1.0, at 1.75.