Monsters FAQ

*Important: With the update on 11/16/2020 two new tiers of end-game monsters were released, and this page may need to be updated to reflect any new META.

What's the Max Level your monsters can be?
Right now there is no Max Level for your monsters, but there is a max Damage your monsters can reach. Your monsters damage per second caps at 100.00dk or 1.00e281 which tends to be between Monster Level 61,000 - 67,000 (results may vary).

My [lower tier monster] is stronger than [higher tier monster], why?
This happens because of 2 reasons: The first being Multi-Card DPS, which means you likely got more repeat cards for lower tiered monsters, increasing their damage. The 2nd reason is that you have gained attribute levels for lowered tier monsters, while recently unlocked monsters have no attribute levels. As you may have guessed, this also increases their damage, along with some other stats.

What is Multi-Card DPS?
Multi-Card DPS is a permanent boost to DPS your towers receive when you receive duplicate cards for them. The amount of DPS boost you get depends on the deck you open (more expensive = more boost), and your upgrade level on the first upgrade of Research Tier 4, which increases the boost received only on duplicate cards opened after the upgrade was bought or upgraded further.

What are attribute levels?
Attribute levels are the levels your towers gain through EXP (rather than gold upgrades). Att. levels are permanent, and provide a multitude of bonuses to monsters:


 * 1) Strength: Increases this monster's Damage by 10% per level, uncapped.
 * 2) Power: Incrases this monster's Crit Damage by 2% per level, up to level 50 (+100% Crit Damage).
 * 3) Accuracy: Increases this monster's Crit Chance by 0.5% per level, up to level 25 (+12.5% Crit Chance)
 * 4) Agility: Increases this monster's Attack Speed by 0.5% per level, up to level 25 (+12.5% Attack Speed)
 * 5) Alchemy: Increases base gold dropped by enemies killed by this monster. Each level adds +1 to the gold dropped per enemy, capping at 100. This value, however, can be upgraded to a total of 1,100. With 500 coming from Gem Store Upgrades and the other 500 coming from Ascension Upgrades.

What monster types should I be using?
Every monster has a different focus:


 * 1) Water towers are good all-round towers, with active skills providing some slowing or Area of Effect (AoE for short) abilities. Their passive skills usually provide extra Damage and Attack Speed to other Water monsters.
 * 2) Air towers are short-ranged, quick attacking towers, whose active skills focus on confusing enemies and increasing gold gain. Their passive skills include mostly Crit bonuses for other air towers, including both Crit Chance and Crit Damage. Note that these towers may seem weaker than Water and Fire types because Crit isn't taken into account when calculating DPS.
 * 3) Earth Towers are long-ranged, slow attacking towers, whose active skills consist of stunning enemies or AoE attacks. Their passive skills are similar to those of Air Towers, increasing Crit Damage and Chance for other Earth Towers. And just like Air Towers, they may also appear weaker than normal, because Crit Stats aren't considered when calculating DPS.
 * 4) Fire Towers are also balanced towers, just like Water monsters. Their active skills, however, only consist of Damage over Time (DoT for short) abilities that affect a single enemy, or AoE abilities, somewhat similar to those of Earth monsters. Since these towers don't have movement impairing abilities, they're, naturally, damage focused towers, and are often favored by early/mid game players because of that.

What are Godly monsters and what's so special about them?
Godly monsters are the second to last tier of monsters you unlock. From the moment you unlock them, you'll never end up completely replacing your Godly monsters, so it's safe to invest into them. They are also stronger than all the previous tiers. Godly monsters also buff all other dps monsters on the map regardless of element. These 3 reasons make Godly Monsters highly desirable.

What Godly monsters should I be using?
Almost unarguably, Conduit should be your main/best Godly monster. Despite having seemingly lower numbers than all other Godlies, its Gold Lust skill increases the amount of gold you get. Surprisingly, this extra gold you get may end up allowing you get some more levels on your monsters, which is probably more valuable than the extra base damage. The Gold Lust skill is also especially powerful when used on enemies such as Drones, Bosses, Cargo Ships and Haulers, as this skill stacks with the gold multipliers available for these specific enemies. Your secondary monster should be Tortuoise or Ginga, depending on whether you want to take benefit from Tort's single target active ability, or Ginga's splash attacks. Lord Firefly is often disregarded as it fills the same purpose as Ginga, but does it to a slightly smaller extent. This may occur because Lord Firefly has an already high Attack Speed (or low Attack Delay/Time), which reaches the 0.1s cap more easily, making Attack Speed upgrades beyond the cap useless. Ginga does not cap this as stat as easily, and gains Crit Damage from other Earth monsters, which is also a very important source of damage (by this stage).

What are Immortal monsters and what's so special about them?
Immortal monsters are the last tier of monsters you unlock that can gain attribute levels (Exotic towers can't gain attribute levels). These monsters will be unlocked with a multi-card bonus equivalent to the same level as your lowest multi-card bonus on your Godly monsters. This means that they are able to be used immediately without too much of a penalty to DPS. Immortal monsters use other monsters of the same element to buff themselves and also add an element of crowd control and area of effect damage. The are considered equivalent to Godly monsters.

What Immortal monsters should I be using
Once you unlock Immortals, you can start using them interchangeably with Godly monsters. You will still want to have Conduit on the map, but many people prefer to use Kolk as DPS instead of Conduit because of Kolk's crit damage modifier based on other air monsters on the map. With the introduction of these new monsters, you can start experimenting between Immortal or Godly versions of the elements on the map to see what works best for you. Any combination of monsters will get you to the end-game and the crowd control does come in very handy. Squidley (not to be confused with the Exotic Squidler) does not have the big single target damage, but instead fires much faster than Tortuoise and can damage every monster on the map. Pumpking gains crit chance from other earth monsters on the map, increasing super crit chance, as well as stunning monsters in a radius. Investing ascensions in Immortals will not be a wasted effort.

What are Exotic Monsters and why are they also so important?
Exotic Monsters are the last tier of monsters you can unlock (done through the Tech Tree). They're special in a way that they don't attack, but rather support your placed towers. Exotic towers have 4 different skills, all varying in effect and the way they're applied. The skills affect nearby monsters' stats and the drops of enemies that die within range. Exotics are valuable because their skills make progress easier, whether it's current run progress (gold gained, highest wave), or overall game (number/global upgrades) progress.

What Exotic Monster should I get first?
After you get more scrolls per Tech Ship kill, which is more important, you should probably work your way to Nimbus first if you're looking for an Exotic monster. After that, Squidler is a good choice, followed by Heatrash if you want to pair it with monsters that benefit from a cooldown reduction on their spells (Conduit and Tortouise benefit the most from this), otherwise Treefer. Proceed to get the last Exotic, and you should be good to go.

Once you unlock the exotics that are available from Tournament Points priority should be placed on either Nature Djinn or PsiloCybil. Nature Djinn assists with gold generation and PsiloCybil increases game speed. Both are fantastic investments to progression and speeding up farming runs.

Exotic skills cost gems, now what?
The 3rd, 4th, and Range upgrades for Exotic monsters all cost 125, 175 and 250 gems to unlock, respectively. These upgrades are independent, meaning you have to buy them for every upgrade of each Exotic Monster. When you have a skill unlocked, whether you paid for it or it was included with the Exotic when you obtained it, it costs an increasing amount of essence to upgrade, with each skill/upgrade going up to level 5, with a linear increase of stats (ex.: +50/+100/+150/+200/+250% DPS from Squidler's first skill).

While this mechanic may seem to force you to spend an absurd amount of gems, and while you're not completely wrong, there are abilities you should prioritize unlocking first. You should unlock the 3rd skill of every Exotic first, usually in the order you first unlocked them: Nimbus -> Squidler -> Heatrash/Treefer -> Last Exotic. Proceed to go for Range upgrades, and finally, the 4th skill. It is generally a good idea to also upgrade these in the same order as you unlocked the 3rd skills/unlocked the Exotics.