IRONHIDE COMMUNITY FORUM

Hey Guys,

I have trouble choosing between building Templars or Assassins on any given map/challenge. Lets discuss which barracks type you prefer and why.

Generally, Templars are better "meat" units as they have more health, and armor, and do more base damage than assassins. Having "meat" is great when I have a concentrated death zone with artillery. Otherwise, on their own, Templars are slow to kill,and their arterial strike ability chance to hit is so low that it is rarely useful and not worth the money to me. When i use Templar i like to upgrade their health first, then their revive ability. When maxed out they are essentially a brick wall for enemies to stop at while your other towers go to work.

Personally I enjoy using Assassins more cause they are more interesting strategically and they do more damage than Templar. Assassins naturally are invisible, which helps them ambush pesky ranged enemies, and they naturally have a 40% dodge chance. I use assassins to get the jump on high priority targets like blood tricksters, saurian savants, or even to take down lone high health enemies. Once you upgrade sneak attack they get a small % chance of insta-killing any enemy, on top of their high damage, armor ignoring shoryuken uppercut. Their dodge helps them both survive longer and boost their damage even more. At first I loved their stealing ability, but the cost of 200 gold takes a long time to pay back, and often you dont profit until the very last waves when i dont need the money... so now i rarely ever buy it.

Strategically, I let Templars sit in one place and be meat. With Assassins I like to constantly move their rally points to high priority targets, and if their are none, they are also meat for the rest of my towers.

Pickpocket triggers on Assassins' dodge -- because their dodge is also a "counter attack". You have to combine the two abilities to see a steady rate of gold income from Assassins. Pickpocket on it's own does take a long time to return the investment; but even after maxing it with the dodge, you'll see your return and more usually within the same wave. For this reason alone, I always take Assassins.

Assassins for the win They are soo cool haha, that's my only reason. I think the icon for ios would also look funny if the devs choose a templar instead of an assassin or maybe I'm just biased.

Love your review! You guys got it just right

I haven't played the game yet, but it is certain that i will use templars much more than assasins Their 400 health (and if there is a health booster star-powered ability just like in KR1, it raises it to 450 ) is not the only thing, their damage isn't a small deal too. (compared to paladin's 12-18 damage) And if that revive ability triggers 3-4 times in a row, let's say that happened in a hard situation, can save lives, and stars!!

On the other hand, assasins' %60 chance of dodge, with a counterattack is a big deal too. Also needs micromanagement to send them onto archers, that's what i love <3. Sneak attack seems pretty powerful too, i cant decide now

@ Cable- Are you saying pickpocket triggers everytime the dodge move triggers? I thought it has 40% chance like any hit.

Also from what I saw pickpocket give 1-3 gold per trigger and costing 200 gold that means you need 133 pickpocket triggers to to earn it back. Sure thats divided by 3 assassins =44 pickpocket triggers. but they arnt always fighting. 44 triggers can take awhile - maybe 2-3 waves. I'll test it some more to see. But thanks Cable for the info.

There should be an ability for a barracks tower to hit ranged attacks and hit flying enemies. It makes it a lot harder to beat levels with only barracks.

goochf wrote:@ Cable- Are you saying pickpocket triggers everytime the dodge move triggers? I thought it has 40% chance like any hit.

the % is for the dodge, the counterattack is all the time on dodge. Pickpocket has a chance to trigger on the counterattack alongside regular attacks. The dodge ability, in short, gives you a lot more opportunity for Pickpocket to trigger (and it does so very often). You get your gold back and more really fast because of this.

I find the assassins to be very weak and uneffective against enemies with at least decent health. Immortals executioners etc just rip assassins apart and in such scenarious they are kinda useless. I find templars to be more efficient and just overall stronger. However its a shame they are templars and not crusaders.

Honestly I find there are so many enemies that punish solider use like savage hunters, parasytes, poukai riders, nightscales, and darters that I hardly use soldiers from snapvine bridge onwards, and usually if I do, they are the last thing on the map I will take to L4, and if they get to L4, the last thing to get upgrades.

As far as the Assassins' pickpocket ability. I measured it very carefully on Buccaneer's Den one time - I start with a L3 artillery at the top, then build a 1st assassin with pickpocket as quickly as possible, then a second. I forget what wave I have 2 with pickpocket, maybe around wave 6 or 7. I never called waves early, and paid attention to the cost of every upgrade I purchased on the map. I then re-played the level identically, except I never bought the pickpocket ability.

The total gold difference in using two Assassins with pickpocket was 905 gold. Since 400 of that was invested in the pickpocket ability doing nothing, the "net" profit was 505 gold, or about 250 per Assassin tower. Since their positioning is at the mouth of the ship where the enemies enter the map, they are almost 100% engaged with enemies, so I would consider this more or less the upper limit on what you can get from pickpocket.

How do you bookmark a thread?

puddleglum wrote:As far as the Assassins' pickpocket ability. I measured it very carefully on Buccaneer's Den one time - I start with a L3 artillery at the top, then build a 1st assassin with pickpocket as quickly as possible, then a second. I forget what wave I have 2 with pickpocket, maybe around wave 6 or 7. I never called waves early, and paid attention to the cost of every upgrade I purchased on the map. I then re-played the level identically, except I never bought the pickpocket ability.

The total gold difference in using two Assassins with pickpocket was 905 gold. Since 400 of that was invested in the pickpocket ability doing nothing, the "net" profit was 505 gold, or about 250 per Assassin tower. Since their positioning is at the mouth of the ship where the enemies enter the map, they are almost 100% engaged with enemies, so I would consider this more or less the upper limit on what you can get from pickpocket.

Can you redo your test but with the dodge ability maxed? I think there is a contention that your gold intake increases much much faster that way.

Loox wrote:

puddleglum wrote:As far as the Assassins' pickpocket ability. I measured it very carefully on Buccaneer's Den one time - I start with a L3 artillery at the top, then build a 1st assassin with pickpocket as quickly as possible, then a second. I forget what wave I have 2 with pickpocket, maybe around wave 6 or 7. I never called waves early, and paid attention to the cost of every upgrade I purchased on the map. I then re-played the level identically, except I never bought the pickpocket ability.

The total gold difference in using two Assassins with pickpocket was 905 gold. Since 400 of that was invested in the pickpocket ability doing nothing, the "net" profit was 505 gold, or about 250 per Assassin tower. Since their positioning is at the mouth of the ship where the enemies enter the map, they are almost 100% engaged with enemies, so I would consider this more or less the upper limit on what you can get from pickpocket.

Can you redo your test but with the dodge ability maxed? I think there is a contention that your gold intake increases much much faster that way.

I'll try it sometime. I'm sure that I maxed the dodge on both towers, but I don't know when.

Hey, tell us what armor have Templars and Assasins?
I found it at wiki, assasins doesn't have armor, templars have medium.

Well, IMO, Templars are just a weaker version of paladins whose special abilities mirror the paladin's and I only use them because paladins aren't available.

Example:
1- Holy Strike is the counterpart to arterial strike since both deals great true damage, but holy stile is better since it happens more often and deals area damage(I'm assuming bleeding does true damage), even though bleeding stike does more damage

2- Holy Grail is the counterpart to healing light since both basically add health. IMO, holy grail is just as good as healing light but healing light is cheaper so it wins this round.

3- Shield of Valor is the counterpart to toughness. Shield of valor easily wins this because armor > health ( proof is when a lone Gerald took down a full health yeti on hard without using shield of retribution) and because toughness is WAY too expensive.

Having said that, Templars are pretty powerfull and they are pretty cool towers, but still....

Assassins ftw!

... Gerald can't fight a Yeti without using SoR...

JuiceBox wrote:... Gerald can't fight a Yeti without using SoR...

Yes, he can. At least in the iOS version.

Krfan wrote:

JuiceBox wrote:... Gerald can't fight a Yeti without using SoR...

Yes, he can. At least in the iOS version.

Oh. Alright.

Can you explain how?

I think it's a bug. He just never uses it against area attack enemies.