So your base is a long mess of small towers? Are you capped on leveling them because you're behind on breeding and so you've been building new ones instead? All still small and weaker than other players at your level?
Hmmm, burn it all!
Or DO NOT BECAUSE WE CAN FIX IT!
When fixing a base, there are a few common steps to do so as not to be overwhelmed. Remember it takes time and an understanding of towers and base mechanics to be able to get back on track. To help with this, I created this guide. The cardinal rule to follow here is: If in doubt, always ask!
So: How to fix a base?
1. Look at the Setup!
-Determine what your kill island will be.
-Determine your layout.
-Determine what to do with the remaining towers.
-Adjust runes, glyphs, and relics.
2. Perches, riders, and gear! Please see How to Build Your Base II guide.
3. Testing!
4. Brief discussion on merges and transformations!
1. Looking at the Setup:
a. Start by seeing what can be your kill islands.
*Excluding farms, a level 300+ should have at least 1 maxed kill islands, 400+ should have at least 2 maxed kill islands, 500+ 3-4 maxed kill islands, 600+ 4-5 maxed kill islands, 700+ 6-7 maxed kill islands.
*Recommended buildings for kill islands:
Volts (2+)
Ice flaks (n)
Orreries (n)
Dark flak (1) / Nexus (n)
Howi (n)
Soul drain (n)
Mages/ Archmages (n)
(if no embers or bars or bloods, lights and storms are an ok substitute for volts and orreries, Ice turrets + storm combos are also an acceptable substitution if ice shards are available.)
Once you determine which towers will constitute your kill islands from the ones available on your base, rearrange your base so that you have 2-3 kill islands (depending on your level, it could be more) and store the remaining towers for now.
b. How to place these towers?
Think “RANGE” + “SIZE” + "Winding time".
-Range: The longer the range of a tower (the blue area that appears when you click on a tower), the further you can place the tower. Ex: Volts and howis have a long range so they can be placed at the back of an island (although volts can work nicely at the front too because they have a quick firing speed).
-Size: Avoid as much as you can placing big towers next to each other so flyers can’t one-shot 2/3 towers. Sometimes it’s unavoidable though. Don’t stress.
-Projectile Speed and Wind-up time: Towers with a high projectile speed and a short wind-up time (like volts) can also be put at the front of an island because they take less time to fire at an incoming dragon.
**Keeping these factors in mind, tower positions is still subjective and can depend on the current most used dragon. Make sure you defend your layout and see what works for you and what does not.
c. What do I do with the remaining towers that are not on the kill island?
Everything else not on the kill islands (or not being leveled up to put on the kill island) is dispensable = We store it or merge/ transform it but in a way that doesn’t create XP debt unless the player needs the XP debt.
But.. What is XP debt?
XP debt is an increased required amount of XP that gets added to the original XP needed to level up a base. It occurs when a player transforms or merges a tower that creates a "required XP" to level up to the next level.
VIP***: XP debt is only needed if the player is way over-leveled and doesn’t have the dragons for the level they’re in. Why? because it gives room for the player to build up their towers and catch up on breeding without actually leveling up the player.
Example:
Originally, this 673 player requires 1.42M XP to reach level 674.
However, if they merge the level 185 Blue Archmage into the level 185 Charged Volt to make it level 186 Volt, the required XP will be 15.4 M. So the total XP to level up to level 674 becomes 16.82M (15.4M XP debt + 1.42M original XP required).
This is not a good merge for various reasons:
1. The volt is capped at 186, there is no reason to merge a 185 tower into it.
2. The XP debt accumulated is high! (need to be careful with this)
3. Archmages are good towers to keep on base. Would recommend against using them for merges.
>> SO how do we determine if we need an XP debt or not?
Simple steps:
1. Go to Wd-neon
2. Go to buildings
3. Pick any building
4. Scroll down till you reach the base level (lets say a player level 600)
5. See what the building level should be at that level (or the level below if that level doesn't show) and what tier dragons you should have to build it there.
Ex: For a level 600 player (in WDneon L599 is shown for the hut/tower levels), their towers should be at level 148 with builder hut level 70 and have bred 2 legendary dragons from the Radiant Tier.
6. If your breeding tier is signficantly below that, then an XP debt might be needed. If your tower levels are below that but your breeding tier is not, XP debts are less needed but could help depending on the tower levels (if significantly below the appropriate tower level for your base, halting your base level through an XP debt to allow for towers to catch up might be a good method). Ask if unsure!
7. Merging and transforming are briefly discussed below.
d. Once the setup is finalized, adjust runes, glyphs, and relics. Please see How to Build Your Base II guide.
2. Perches, Riders, and Gear: Please see How to Build Your Base II guide.
a. Perch:
It's recommended to level up one perch only thats covering your kill islands until you expand your base then start leveling the other perches. If all perches have been leveled up but some have uncapped levels still, move your focus to leveling the one(s) covering the kill islands only until they are capped or your base naturally expands to the other perches.
b. Perch dragon:
The more commonly used dragons for perches are mythic warriors due to their HP boost for towers. But it depends on player preference and what they prioritize for their base.
c. Defensive riders and Gear:
Provide a significant boost for towers both HP and attack wise. Keep checking if better def riders have been released. Use the best stats for your tower setup whenever possible. At the time of this guide, best def riders are Freeda > Maya > Antonius.
Use ascending defensive gear and have at least one exotic defensive helm (through atlas line) available for your base cause it adds extra supershots for defense.
3. Testing!
Defend your base repeatedly (especially in atlas) and see if your placements work or not. Defend others as well and see if their setup is better on defense. Can always change the layout if it doesn’t do well on defense. Test things. And don’t forget to ask for more experienced players’ opinions.
Remember base designing is a dynamic process. There is no such thing as a perfect or final base. Keep testing, adjusting, and testing again.
4. Brief discussion on merging and transformations:
a. When to transform and when to merge?
- I usually transform when I need a high level tower in place of the original high level one and when the XP created from the transformation isn’t huge.
- I merge when I need to level up a tower and have a bunch of little- mid leveled up towers.
- I also merge when I need to save up on certain rss like timers/ embers/ bars.
b. How do I determine what to merge/ transform?
This is a learning process. You should determine your goals first. Do you need an XP debt? Are you merging/ transforming to save on resources? Are you wanting another type of tower in place of the one you're sacrificing? These are all questions that will guide you in what's best to do.
For the actual transformation/ merging, you have to experiment in theory through WDNeon and, soon through WD Scripts, till you get the best merge options in terms of XP debts and resource saving before you implement your plan. Start by:
- Going to Wd Neons
- Going to Buildings
- Go to resource transformation assistant
- Enter your data. See result.
- Try other options before you implement previous result to see if something gives a better outcome in terms of resources saved and XP debt accumulated.
- You can also go to Tower merge calculator and do the same, this is how I first learned to merge. I strongly recommend trying it first to get a better feel of what to do.
- If unsure, it is better to ask for assistance than to merge/ transform a tower blindly that will create a big XP debt and prevent you from leveling up at the normal pace.
*More information on merging/ transforming soon.