Guide to Blight Towers

What is in your opinion best tower for afk summoners in blighted maps?
You enter a map, and spend 2400 resources and never touch anything again.
Also minions are doing the killing, so this is important for potential buffs (that would not affect them).
Is there anything better than triple meteor tower? (x2)
Thing with those meteors is, that you can build them even in suboptimal position, if there is no tower spawned next to pump at the beginning of the map. With their massive range, even if you put them on the edge of the screen, they will still cover the pump and beyond.

Slowing towers of all sorts are decent, such as stone gaze, but if you don't have tower spawned near pump and build this far away, it will just clump lot of enemies there, too far for minions to attack.

Foolproof tower would need to be efficient regardless of initial spawn.

Quicker update turned out to be long since i've lost 2 of characters unfortunately. I didn't really get to do many blighted maps in the end. Anyway what i found out so far:

Lightning Storm Tower enchantment - from garbage to slightly less garbage (i think?). Storms still have AoE where lightnings will randomly strike, similar to Firestorm or Lightning Storm (think of Piety). Enchantment simply... makes tower to not cast these storms randomly in it's area? Either that or it's bugged. In any case - avoid at all costs. Arc is still the best clearing tower in the game.

Meteor Tower burning ground enchantment - i noticed something odd last time i wrote but didn't confirm it until later. Fire resistant monsters take full damage from burning ground created by Meteor tower. Needless to say it's absolutely ridiculous and makes full Meteor tower strategy much better than it was before. Obviously Seismic and Chill towers should still be placed around the map in order to make Meteors more efficient. This should be much better for blighted maps than encounters as i mentioned before. Once i finally get to do blighted maps i'll definitely try it out.

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aerial wrote:

Spoiler

What is in your opinion best tower for afk summoners in blighted maps?
You enter a map, and spend 2400 resources and never touch anything again.
Also minions are doing the killing, so this is important for potential buffs (that would not affect them).
Is there anything better than triple meteor tower? (x2)
Thing with those meteors is, that you can build them even in suboptimal position, if there is no tower spawned next to pump at the beginning of the map. With their massive range, even if you put them on the edge of the screen, they will still cover the pump and beyond.

Slowing towers of all sorts are decent, such as stone gaze, but if you don't have tower spawned near pump and build this far away, it will just clump lot of enemies there, too far for minions to attack.

Foolproof tower would need to be efficient regardless of initial spawn.

In case you're wondering why i didn't reply to you is due to few facts:

#1 - "I'm summoner and want to afk blighted map" doesn't tell me much. I have to know what kind of tower you need.
#2 - It's obvious to me you didn't even bother reading the guide. You can easily find answer yourself if you spend 5-10 mins (and i hope you did).
#3 - You already have most important "towers" which are your minions. I know summoners are capable of afk clearing without any help.

Finally did 6-7 blighted maps with burning ground enchantment, 3x Verdant maps (45% packsize) and one with 3x Azure (45% increased XP). Works great as expected. Just spam Meteor towers like maniac and destroy all monsters, regardless if they're fire resistant mobs or are protect by proximity shield. Burning ground doesn't care.


It's probably a go-to enchantment right now if you want to mindlessly complete blighted maps. Of course it's not entirely perfect but at certain point it becomes silly.

Second enchantment you should get is up to you. The one that causes chilling tower to freeze enemies is still my favorite jack of all trades. Of course you can pick anything else that's useful.

In terms of comparison between existing multitower strategy and new burning ground Meteor spam - they're more or less the same. Both of them do their jobs. However multitower is still more versatile especially at the beginning of the round.

I uploaded quick footage of burning ground affecting fire resistant mobs. Check second 45 to clearly see fire bats tanking meteor and dying to degen.


I don't know when or if i test Indigo+Golden oil interaction. I would 2 of them or just 1 and freeze enchant against a tanky monster. In short tough job to do.

GGG dropped really unexpected adjustments to blight towers. I copied all changes to a spoiler below for quick reference.


I find it hilarious how GGG straight up buffed already ridiculously good towers. Let's break it down

Arc and Shock Nova towers - depending on tower's mechanics it's insane buff, to good buff or close to pointless one. Each of them fires so fast it's a little harder to grasp it's mechanics compared to Chilling or Seismic for example. If these tower's effectiveness is gated by cast speed then oh boy... Single Arc tower holding 10 lanes on it's own is a possibility. If it's cooldown based like Glacial Cage then it doesn't really matter. From my memory it's the former. I'll have to see and test it in action myself.

Chilling and Seismic towers - what happened here? They're already so stupidly good for how cheap they are. If i'm reading this right they now have permanent uptime from tier 1. Chilling tower having even more chilling effect (and it was already really strong at tier 3) makes perma freezing annointment kind of... pointless? Plus a single Seismic should achieve same results. From ridiculously strong to straight up broken, both.

Minion tower - big buff, but doesn't matter. They still deal 0 damage and Seismic/Chilling just completely stop enemies anyway.

Freezebolt tower - massive buff, but unless they buff this needle width projectile there's no point in using it. Maybe i'm wrong. I'll check it out in practice to be sure.

Stone Gaze tower - this tower was already very strong. It's simply too expensive compared to Seismic/Chilling tower. This tower should now petrify an enemy after 1,25 second from 1,75.

Scouts tower - casually doubling the damage. Might even be worth using, who knows. It's been a while since i used it last time and i wasn't impressed at all. It's purpose has always been finishing off enemies who somehow got through your defences, but if they're set up right then you should never leak anything in the first place.

What i could see potentially is combining Freezebolt spam with Scouts. They compliment each other very well and if their buffs are strong enough then it might be a legit strat.


Very likely i'll be updating the guide this league. I'm looking forward to see all changes in action.

I've tested many combos and have been using Scout towers for a long time. Slowing things down is ok but you have to kill mobs in Blighted maps or the lag will be too much.

So I just go pure Scout towers everywhere with additional range and a couple of Glacial Cage towers next to the pump in case anything slips through. They have huge coverage and also block lanes. This buff is going to make them super powerful.



Other towers like the meteor one does a lot of damage but you have to combo it with other towers that slow or stop mobs or it will miss every time and do absolutely nothing.

Back with report on how towers perform after buff. I didn't do many blighted maps but you don't really need that to assess tower's strength... in most cases anyway. I was on spot with every prediction except one.

Arc and Shock Nova towers - as i expected, buff is definitely visible. I didn't test numbers but Arc with Emp III shoots twice per second or sth like that? Maybe faster? Either way cast speed was the limiting factor and it shows. Shock Nova i didn't test since you should upgrade to Arc tower as soon as possible anyway.

Chilling and Seismic towers - again, predictions were correct. Chilling tower is very strong now and freeze annointment while still extremely useful it's more optional. Seismic tower is now godlike. Kill them with utility. Emp III, Seismic II and you will leak nothing. Absolutely nothing. Of course "cannot be stunned" map mod still makes this tower useless and phys resistant monster will ignore it but anything else just stops in tracks. It completely trivializes Blight league mechanic. Bow to your new god, Seismic Tower.

Minion tower - no thanks, i already worship Seismic Tower. As mentioned earlier, no point of using when Chilling and Seismic towers exist.

Freezebolt tower - still terrible during blight encounters. For blighted maps on the other hand... is actually decent?! Double cast speed means double amount of projectiles per minute, and also significantly higher uptime on freeze if something survives the hit. When you spam them, there's now so many projectiles (still capped at 5 per tower) that needle width projectiles aren't even too troublesome. The good part about this tower is range of it's projectiles. I don't even know how long it is, but could be Meteor radius or even more.

It used to be the worst tower in the game but now it's actually usable. I'll do something fun and go for annointments that gives +2 projectile and ignore resistance of cold enemies. Looking foward to results, but it might be a while before i can spend more crimson/black oils.

EDIT: Nvm it's still bad. I actually managed to fail one blighted map because i wanted it to be solo Freezebolt tower only. Not reliable enough. There's also something interesting i noticed but i'll talk about it next time.

Stone Gaze tower - same points as before, same as Minion tower.

Scouts tower - barely capable of clearing a single portal worth of monsters with Emp III. Buff might've been big but it's still a disappointment. Like previously it's not a bad tower. It's purpose is to finish off enemies who somehow got through your defences - but that should never happen, and you should not build it as a result.

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SaiyanZ wrote:

Spoiler

I've tested many combos and have been using Scout towers for a long time. Slowing things down is ok but you have to kill mobs in Blighted maps or the lag will be too much.

So I just go pure Scout towers everywhere with additional range and a couple of Glacial Cage towers next to the pump in case anything slips through. They have huge coverage and also block lanes. This buff is going to make them super powerful.

Other towers like the meteor one does a lot of damage but you have to combo it with other towers that slow or stop mobs or it will miss every time and do absolutely nothing.

Very intriguing. I also tested towers a lot (who knew?) and my findings were complete opposite! I don't know who to trust now, me who spent tens of hours testing blight towers and gathering data or a person who says "dude trust me" without sharing important details. Jokes aside this reminds me of a guy who said Freezebolt towers are extremely good (pre 3.12) while running necromancer who was known to afk clear blighted maps.

It's obvious to me that you didn't read my guide and just shared your opinion. Scout towers were awful and still are if you want to spam them. They're a supportive tower, not meant to be used as the only damage source. If you can achieve it, then you must be running 60% reduced tower cost blighted map which makes any tower viable. Arc and Meteor are simply significantly better as a clear/dps source, simple as that.

I suppose I'm mostly referring to blight encounters, not blight maps. Scout towers do well in both without needing special setups as the minions block so they are also a slow.

In blight maps you can get the setups and combos of towers you need to get things like meteor towers to work well.

In blight encounters, the encounter will be over or near over by the time you set up a meteor tower and a glacial cage tower for it to actually hit. Too many mobs were just slipping through when I tested building meteor towers. I used the meteor towers always stun and extra meteor enchants as well when testing it.

Consistency is more important for me. The goal is to never lose a blight mission. Not to do awesome in one and randomly lose another. Scout towers are more consistent as they are always doing something. The minions block mobs when the mission starts, giving me more time to run around and set up towers/clear mobs. When fully upgraded to Scout towers, they also do damage in a huge area and never miss.

I also did read your guide. That's the only reason I decided to post here because you write off some towers too easily. I've been using Scout towers for several months now, before this large buff.

Your information on Scout Towers is even incorrect so your "testing" is in doubt now. You say they are invulnerable and don't block. Actually they are vulnerable and do block. That's pretty incorrect info for someone who has done the "testing".

"

SaiyanZ wrote:

Spoiler

I suppose I'm mostly referring to blight encounters, not blight maps. Scout towers do well in both without needing special setups as the minions block so they are also a slow.

In blight maps you can get the setups and combos of towers you need to get things like meteor towers to work well.

In blight encounters, the encounter will be over or near over by the time you set up a meteor tower and a glacial cage tower for it to actually hit. Too many mobs were just slipping through when I tested building meteor towers. I used the meteor towers always stun and extra meteor enchants as well when testing it.

Consistency is more important for me. The goal is to never lose a blight mission. Not to do awesome in one and randomly lose another. Scout towers are more consistent as they are always doing something. The minions block mobs when the mission starts, giving me more time to run around and set up towers/clear mobs. When fully upgraded to Scout towers, they also do damage in a huge area and never miss.

I also did read your guide. That's the only reason I decided to post here because you write off some towers too easily. I've been using Scout towers for several months now, before this large buff.

Your information on Scout Towers is even incorrect so your "testing" is in doubt now. You say they are invulnerable and don't block. Actually they are vulnerable and do block. That's pretty incorrect info for someone who has done the "testing".

I knew i should've just ignored you, why don't i listen to myself? You're bold enough to question my testing methods, claim you read my guide and still try to convince me that Scout towers are amazing. You wouldn't mind if i defend myself, would you?

#1 Credibility of my tests/data - First of all it should be obvious i thoroughly tested each tower and it's capabilities. I don't think there exists a site/guide that provides more data than me, on top of general guide to help people understand blight mechanic. For your information i collected data manually, by recording and checking every single tower for each Empowering tower level (including 0, no Emp). I still have those replays on my disk, roughly 100-120 of them. I can upload all of them if necessary, but i doubt you'll ask for it.

#2 Scout towers are great - They are, they truly are - at their job of killing leftover monsters. Pre-buff Arc tower clears multiple times better than Scout tower after those massive buffs. Of course it's easy to claim something without proof, i could be lying after all. So to end this exchange of "X is good, Y is bad" it's more convenient to compared it using videos instead:

3.9 Arc Tower vs 3.12 Scout Tower

In both cases they were done in red maps. In Scout Tower video, despite not ideal tower placement, you can still clearly see minions not taking any damage or blocking enemies. At the beginning you can also observe Summoning tower minions being affected by my Malevolence Aura, while Scout tower minions were unaffected. I see no area damage and nearly all monsters leaked too.

In Arc tower video i wasn't sure if i'm going to leak due to minion resistant mobs spawning significant amount of extra mobs. Seismic Tower also wasn't very useful and mostly out of range of minions.

If you believe comparison was unfair (Arc one was never meant to be used for that purpose), then i heavily recommend checking end of both videos and how quickly each tower dealt with leftover monsters. Look at minimap in Arc one.

#3 You read my guide - Remember that i made this guide. It's been a long time but i still recall state of each tower and my strategy, plus i can always check it any time i want. If your claim was true and you even bothered to make use of my strategy or info at least once, you wouldn't be here praising Scout tower.

Your counterarguments make no sense when you considering you tested Meteor + Glacial Tower on blight encounters, so a tower that's used for boss killing and one that i say is pointless to use over Chilling/Seismic due to terrible cost efficiency? That's absolutely not my strategy! In your previous post you also mentioned you're going Scout + Glacial tower, a multi tower combo. So why do you even considered using multiple towers something bad? You're doing it yourself.

But hey, maybe you actually read my guide. After all you're trying your best to not mention Arc tower which is the core damage tower of my strategy.


I spent enough time on this. You can lie to me or to yourself, but don't be dumb by attempting to do it when anyone can easily verify your claims. I sincerely hope you're trolling me, because that means you weren't serious about all of this. I hope you forgive me, i just can't let people spread misinformation.

I was supposed to update this long time ago, but i also didn't expect 3 month break from PoE. I'm back in the game once again. Should update within 1-3 days tops, while Blight is still a Zana mod and i can almost freely test towers out.

UPDATE: Almost everything is done by now, couple more touches and it's ready.

I recorded 5 videos of me clearing blighted maps (and 5 more will appear tomorrow). This particular one is special, i used it to prove my point how broken utility towers are now.

This post exists only so i can have guide archive at the beginning of new page.