YMMV / Tower Keepers

• Awesome Music: Although this game's soundtrack doesn't have a lot of variety, the Wizard Tower theme is pretty catchy and is arguably one of the best the game has to offer.
• Anti-Climax Boss: The Demonologist on 6-18 is considered very easy, as long as you have decent gear & average stars.
• Better Off Sold: Almost all Common & Uncommon weapon & armor drops fall under this category once you advance to at least Rare gear.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Many glaring examples of this can be found in this game:
  • At the highest levels, you'll only see a select few monsters and machines being utilized for tower defense, which stems from the issue of so few of them being remotely viable for that purpose:
    • Chill Turrets are practically ubiquitous for the sheer support capabilities they provide. The Freezing Aura passive is their most valuable asset, slowing down the raiding party's skill cooldowns by a sizable percentage. Because of that, they synergize incredibly well with other defending heroes or monsters, giving them more time to attack or cast buffs/debuffs.
  • Blackguard, Warlock, Warmaster, Druid, Cleric, and Knight are all mainstays when it comes to most of the game, and they are almost always the ones that players grind to max out first.
  • The meta for Hero Battles most of the time is Cleric Warmaster Shaman Knight, with Knight tanking in the front and the other three behind him.
• Difficulty Spike: This applies to a few different aspects of this game:
  • Wizard's Chosen for Keeper Level 45+ becomes very difficult until you acquire strong stars and gear unless you slow level, as the star ratings and equipment tiers of the opposing A.I.'s heroes begins to ramp up exponentially.
  • Tower raids at Keeper Level 55. By then, you'll be matched up against many of the "Old Level 55s" who've been farming soul stones, gear, and defending monsters/machines for a number of months. For those who just hit the max keeper level, towers are bound to be hellish until they also grind for a good amount of time.
• Fan Nickname: A few notable monsters are given shorthand names given the complexity of their official names:
  • Black Fist Evokers are nicknamed "cows" because it abbreviates their most famous ability, Cloud Of Weakness.
  • Corrupted Inquisitors are often called "squids".
  • Vicious Overseers are also known as "War Pigs".
  • "Tier 2 equipment" refers to the epic-rarity equipment that was released in the v1.9 update, which, unlike the original epic items, require the player to have one or two artisans at level 55 (the new level cap at the time).
    • "Tier 3 equipment" refers to the equipment added in for the v2.0 update. While these pieces of equipment have a similar requirement of 1-2 level 55 artisans (as the maximum keeper level hasn't been increased again), they require the Tier 2 equipment to be unlocked and their recipes learned before obtaining the Tier 3 recipes. They're also the only equipment to contain negative effects in addition to positive (and even stat reductions on some, rather than simply not altering at all), which previously was only found on the Tier 2 item "The Fortress".
• Game-Breaker:
  • In general gameplay, the heroes Blackguard, Warmaster, and to a lesser extent, Shaman and possibly Archmage can be this, especially when well-leveled and geared.
    • Warmaster is a support hero who is capable of buffing the entire party in effectively every way (although his "meta" build omits one of his buffs in favor of using one of his attacks so he can also contribute damage). One of his passive skills gives a slight increase to all (magic and stun) resistance as well as armor, and his soul skill gives a decent percentage increase to defense as well as more armor. His active skill buffs can apply a percentage damage multiplier to the entire party, as well as shaving off a hefty percentage off of the entire party's skill cooldowns, allowing other support/tank heroes to apply buffs more often, damage dealers to attack more frequently (along with the damage buff), and healers to refresh health faster, and a third buff that gives slight bonus health to the entire party (blocking that much damage from being taken by the targeted hero).
    • Blackguard and Shaman are capable of easily capping out their damage with the attack multiplier 3x damage due to passives, Blackguard having one that lets him ignore over two-thirds of the target's defense during damage calculation (caps out at 70%), and Shaman having a passive that can nearly double his attack stat and equipment bonuses (caps out at 88%). Additionally, Blackguard is defensively strong as well, letting him deal heavy damage like a damage dealer but also take a lot of hits like a tank, particularly when combined with one of his active skills that deals ranged shadow damage and heals him the same amount as dealt to the target. Shaman also has a passive that decreases his active skill cooldowns (although a bit less than Barbarian's and Kensai's, and Mystic's once hers is capped out and is guaranteed to take effect), and one of his active skills increasing his damage output in a unique way, simultaneously increasing his attack by a further flat amount (which does not get affected by his passive's boost) and also flatly increasing his damage stat similar to a weapon during the buff's active period (the only buff in the game to do so, all other damage-increasing buffs apply a percentage multiplier).
    • Archmage is a magic-user damage dealer, and instead of relying on a large attack stat like Blackguard and Shaman, he uses powerful magic weapons and skills that can hit multiple targets. His soul skill, for example, is the second most expensive one in the game (requiring 150 soul energy), only outbeaten by Cleric's Resurrect, but has one of the highest damage ranges in the game (barring the guild boss) and hits all enemies. He also has a move that is the single strongest move in the game for base damage, with its damage range having a minimum that is far higher than most other moves in the game and caps out much higher. However, as an epic hero like Blackguard, gaining soul stones for him is very expensive or rare, and he attacks somewhat sluggishly, making him unviable until endgame when you can focus on getting soul stones for him and have the strongest gear to match his strength.
• Good Bad Bugs: Some enemies have a passive effect called "Defy Death", which grants them a 50% chance to survive a hit that would otherwise kill them, with 1 health left, with the chance reducing by 5% every time it activates (in order to avoid overdrawn stalls from happening more often than they do, and to make them shorter when they do happen). However, this passive suffers from a bug (at least on the monster variant) that makes Damage over Time attacks never end if the attack is still active when they monster reaches 1 health, eventually leading to the Damage over Time killing the enemy. While this is clearly a bug, many players like this bug simply because it reduces the annoyance factor of an otherwise Scrappy Mechanic passive that wastes their time on monsters that should've just died already, and possibly causing their heroes to waste multi-target moves to finish it off rather than saving them for the next stage and get the full effect of their multi-hitting nature.
• Luck-Based Mission: There is a good amount in this game:
  • The Golden Horde 17 ex, While the first 3 waves are generally not an issue although tedious. the final wave has a level 146 Barbarian, and while it may not seem so bad, except for the fact it has find weakness, freezing aura, and a bunch of other nasty stuff. you run the risk of the barbarian leaping strike one of your crucial heroes such as a cleric or druid, to death in one blow without potions, and even then it's luck based on rather or not you can actually slow it down quickly, given how entangle may not always hit or hit her in time. To make the issue even worse the barbarian has very high defense & armor so unless you can score criticals with BG or another powerful hero you'll do little damage and run a MAJOR risk of losing your important back heroes. If you fail at the end you'll have to replay 15-20 mins of tedium to get there again. Have fun!
  • Grim harvest 19: The final wave can be very luck based, especially if on extreme. there are a lot of zombies and they all have find weakness and when they die they do massive fire damage to all. it may not seem so bad as you can pick one at a time, except for the fact the boss will self damage them to death and make ALL go boom and criticals are NOT omitted from this. so you run a major risk of all your heroes dying even with OP stars & gear. the boss also has insane healing and can be very luck based himself due to the fact he does insane shadow damage with a high critical rate & can summon minions. To make matters even worse there are runic constructs that will weaken your heroes badly if you don't kill them fast enough. Turning an already luck based mission into a pure nightmare. The fact, you can only use 3 heroes makes it even worse
  • Pirate Quest 10 Sub 55 : All enemies here have insane critical rate when on low HP and can easily knock out your important back heroes this ain't an issue at 55 as you can have fortress on your tank and easily win without many issues, but before sub 55 you'll have to HOPE your back stuff does not get slammed by critical and your tank dies due criticals this is not too much of an issue on normal or hard, but on extreme it can be a luck based nightmare. What makes it so bad is the fact the final wave is full of cannons and bombards and the pirate himself is no slouch either.
  • Sorceress Adventure 10: this mission is infamously luck based, even at 55. There are many sorceresses and while they may not seem bad, except for the fact that everyone can easily stun your heroes and due to how it works you may be stuck in a loop while the sorceress easily kill your other heroes, the final wave is full of a whopping NINE sorceress, to make it worse there are some that can revive the other sorceress. Some of the sorceresses also have insane defense making it very luck based on whether or not you can actually kill them, and even if you do they'll likely be revived. To exacerbate this issue, even more, you're required to bring the sorceress who's not even that good in the first place preventing you from bringing a more valuable hero to negate the luck somewhat.
  • Tower Raids at 55: Before the weapons & armor update towers at 55 was only an issue if your stars & gear were not good, but ever since the update they have become luck based regardless of how good your stuff is. Ninja floors with the new Mursama Sword in particular have it the worst due to vanishing and INSANE critical damage/armor penetration the ninja can easily snipe your cleric and when she's dead, the ninja will pick off your other heroes if the ninja is surrounded by chills or max dragon minions he'll be able to spam PSB's nonstop pretty much making it impossible to win. The raids are also more luck based, due Graymmarow Wand receiving an OP buff and Mursama floors in general, Wraith of Mountain Shaman Floors & Kensia Mursama can easily snipe a team if you necro lacks Iron rose and even then it depends on whether or not necro actually gets hit HARD or dodges and sends your other heroes to their demise.
• Scrappy Mechanic: There's a long screed of them:
  • The weapon and armor enchanting system. Enchantments don't give the maximum stat boosts possible until Keeper Level 51, which won't be reached by most players for a number of months. Made even worse by the fact that you can't reverse previous enchants or retroactively boost their strength to match your Keeper Level. This quirk isn't explained anywhere in the game either. If you made the mistake of enchanting any of your precious Super Rare or Epic gear before then, you've permanently gimped them from reaching their maximum potential. If you want the enchantments done right after such a blunder, you'd have to waste a massive amount of resources to craft a new copy from scratch and even more gold re-applying the boosts.
  • Gaining XP without any other consolation rewards if you lose a battle in PvE content rather than quitting before defeat. That can also happen if you fail to kill anything when raiding a tower or don't win a single round in a best out of 3 Tier 2 Hero Battles match. Rather irksome for players who aim to have a strong star rating to keeper level ratio through slow-leveling.
  • Getting blocked from spending skill points without wasting skill scrolls. This limitation is cumbersome when you want to spend Skill Points to advance in the Skilled Adept festival event, but you have many scrolls getting in the way. It becomes especially oppressive when you're running out of space to spend Skill Points at all, since your heroes' skills can't be upgraded beyond a certain level depending on their star rating. This also harms your chances for doing good in the scrolls event.
  • Skill scroll loot drops automatically converting to skill points once you max their respective skills at level 10 rather than continuing to accumulate. While this feature may sound convenient, all it really does is prevent high level players from making progress during the Learned Scholar festival event after a finite number of rotations. That's because they likely have their heroes' skills leveled up enough that they're strapped for places to read skill scrolls. Adding insult to injury, skill points are close to useless late-game.
  • The timer that generates a soul stone for a hero defending your tower starting at exactly 24 hours. This requirement alone isn't too bothersome, except for the fact that the next day's countdown doesn't initiate until you collect the reward. It necessitates being very prompt and online the precise moment that it generates, lest the timer gets pushed back more and more, eventually to the point of becoming inconvenient for your schedule. If you want the timer to be restored to the original time, you're forced to lose out on a soul stone in the process of crow-barring it back to where it once was.
  • The quick sell function not having any confirmation before you sell your stuff. While this may not seem bad, except for the fact if you accidentally select gear that the hero has on it'll sell without a warning. This can be very bad if said hero has an epic piece more so a tier 2 or 3 enchanted one, as you'll be forced to make a new one or go through the hassle of contacting support and rather than just be sent a clean copy, you'll have to have a rollback which can cause many days of progress to be lost this problem is even worse on weekends & more so on holidays.
  • Being locked out of Hero Battles if you have 500+ guild marks stashed at once. Although players can be directly taken to the guild shop to spend their marks and continue battling, this can potentially be problematic. Less experienced players may be in a rush to get back to Hero Battles at the time and aren't likely to bat an eye on the chat or guild description, potentially resulting in them impulsively and unwittingly dumping guild marks on items other players don't want.
  • The killing blow for the Guild boss gives a wad of gold and other stuff, and while this may seem awesome, all it does is encourages exploiting and gives an unfair advantage to players who are online when the dragon is at low health.
    • The October 24, 2018 (v2.0) update altered how the Dragon grants per-attack rewards in order to avert this, and especially to remove the capability of guilds exploiting this to allow as many members as possible get the massive rewards. Instead of each attack granting a certain level of rewards (gold and guild marks based on stage, and both plus potion rarity based on whether the Dragon got killed or not), now players are granted gold and guild marks based on damage dealt, regardless of whether they beat the stage or not (although gold boosting passives don't take effect if the Dragon doesn't die), with a minimum.
  • The hero shop has a few nuisances:
    • The basis for what heroes appear in the shop is 100% reliant on RNG rather than working on a set rotation. On one hand, it can be a blessing if you repeatedly are given heroes you want within a short period of time. On the other, this is bound to become rage-inducing if the RNG curses you by preventing a hero you need from showing up in the shop.
    • Exacerbating the above issue, heroes that you've already maxed out at 7 stars aren't omitted from the RNG selecting them to appear in the hero shop. This only serves to spite you and cripples the chances of getting a hero you want to buy soul stones for.
    • The hero shop not refreshing unless you're logged on by the time the 24 hour timer finishes. While it's nowhere near as vital as the tower soul stone, it's still annoying.
  • A number of guild features (or lack of them):
    • Notifications for who assigned guild marks on what item can't be viewed if a player invests less than 500 of them at once. It allows noobs or trolls to sneak marks into items other members don't want and get away with it scot-free.
    • The character limit for your guild description is excessively restrictive, preventing you from fitting in enough valuable information, such as where you want your members to invest their guild marks towards and what items to avoid.
    • Inability for guild leaders to edit the permissions of their officers, such as granting them the privilege of editing the description.
    • Guild Leaders aren't readily able to pass down leadership to their officers without the hassle of emailing support.
    • Members of the same guild can raid each others' towers, yet they can't fight against each other in Hero Battles. While it was intended to prevent guild mates from easily farming prestige from each other, it also makes finding opponents in the queue much more difficult considering this game's small player-base.
    • The Guild Leader can't delete the guild without contacting support.
• That One Level: Tower Keepers has a few of these:
  • Pirate's Voyage 10: In the campaign as a whole, all of the enemies get a large crit chance boost when below a certain health percent. In this level specifically, there is an enemy Pirate who has a Pistol Volley that hits all heroes.
  • Temple of Terror 9: The last wave has four Bastians, making the level way harder than the 8 before it.
  • Crimson Masquerade 17: The last wave can be infamous due to Inspiration spam from Covenant Guardians very easily getting out of control, along with Refreshing Brew from Covenant Witches making it hard to kill anything while they bombard you with Fireball and Frost Bolt. The latter is area of effect, which means it will freeze everyone.
  • Berserker's Quest 10: All of the enemies have high attack, low defense, and higher crit chance, plus they may heal on getting a kill. This level specifically has a Demonic Watcher and Covenant Witch on every one of the three waves on this level.
  • Gathering Storm 10: This level can be very hard. The Giant Zombies and Putrid Hulks here act as walls and thus block all single target hits, along with being immune to stuns. Lesser Liches have Warcry, which adds bonus lightning damage, and Demon Shout, which lowers everyone's defense by a percent.
  • Giving of Thanks 9: This level is infamous to a lot of players, it seems like a joke due to only being bandits, but once you enter, you realize how horrid it really is. Harlequins can use Cloud of Weakness, Repentance, and fireball which will murder your face easily, bandit leaders can use Cover Allies, which makes it MUCH harder to kill anything, and finally, some bandits can stun and rip your tank's armor apart.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Tower Keepers has quite a few things that were good, but were crippled in some way or another.
  • The poor Bombard machine used to be a powerhouse tower defender, but it was nerfed hardcore in terms of damage and initiative. To rub salt into the wound, it now also costs a lot more gold and a whopping 10 void cores to craft, making it a huge waste of resources now.
  • The guild boss's HP has been doubled for ALL stages, and not just 1-4 as a result, even stages 6-10 have insane HP, making it more or less impossible for almost all guilds to effectively claim the higher rewards unless they have a very high 55 to help them out.
    • Averted as of an update on October 24, 2018. The way the dragon rewards players who attack it was changed to be based on damage dealt throughout an attack, rather than a set reward based on whether they killed it or not, and killing it no longer grants massive rewards. As such, the double health has been permanently retired, as it is no longer needed to prevent strong guilds from killing the dragon repeatedly and continuously earning the massive kill-based rewards.