Defending (Warriors)

The Noob Guide Attacking & Defending Defending Advanced Active Defending Warriors

Warriors
Warrior dragons are the workhorse dragons and almost always are the ones sent to attack first. That’s because due to their health, they are most likely able to solo a base. They don’t have any obvious weaknesses, but they do rely on their shields to mitigate damage. Their healing abilities are generally weak, and an effective attacker rarely uses them unless he has an excess of rage. This advice should be used in addition to the general advice on defending. For example, don’t boost a tower type that the attacker has a resistance to already. Don’t use up all your supershots right away. And so on. That’s all for now, good luck defending! Excerpt from Powdered Toast Blog
 * 1) Wipe out their shields with blue or red tower shots.  Even though the red tower doesn’t impact a shield already generated, it saps rage that will be used in the future.  Blue tower shots are by far your best weapon against warrior dragons. They will also knock out the effects of battle cry, an added bonus.
 * 2) Archer towers, while they can do a lot of damage, don’t have as strong an impact on warrior dragons due to their high health, so they shouldn’t be supershotted until the warrior is close to the end of their health bar.  The exception is if the archer tower is of very high level compared to other towers, in which case you want to maximize its damage output.
 * 3) Storm towers are great for slowing down the progress of a warrior dragon.  But the most effective storm towers for this are in the middle or back row of a grouping.  If you are defending a base and the group of 5 towers has a storm tower in the front row, it is likely the attacker will target it right away.  In the back row, the attacker has to reorient himself and change his target to target the storm tower.  That extra time means extra damage from your other towers.  If the storm tower is in the front row, you may consider skipping supershotting it entirely as it won’t have much impact on the attacker’s progress.
 * 4) Warrior dragons do not do a burst of damage with their attack, so (unless they are immensely powerful) using repair boosts on your towers is highly effective against them.  In addition, may advanced players switch targets in anticipation of a tower’s destruction, so repairing it in that process can ruin their timing and cause them to have to go back to a tower they already thought destroyed.
 * 5) Tower boosts for attack and defense are highly effective against warriors because they do not destroy towers quickly.  Use them with confidence that they will help.
 * 6) The best defensive strategy against warriors is to wear them down, and you do this by simply keeping your towers alive as long as possible.  That means you are using defensive supershots on towers such as storm towers and mage towers, as well as trebuchets, more often than archer towers or ballistas.  Your strategy is to do continuous damage over a period of time instead of a burst all at once.  Of course, if the warrior is almost out of health, hit him with a burst and take him down.
 * 7) Conserve Supershots - Since the warrior dragon is likely to be strong and able to overcome your first 2 islands, be sure to save at least 1 or 2 supershots for a later island, when his health is lower and his rage is dissipated.  Then, on that later island, supershotting a storm tower will make a much bigger impact on his progress.  Or, if he is close to dying, a well timed supershot on an archer tower can take him out entirely.
 * 8) Trebuchets are another way to wear down an attacking warrior.  The trebuchet will have the same effect regardless of its level, so you don’t care if it is level 2 or 20.  I recommend using the trebuchet when you have a group of 5 towers that can put out some serious damage, such as one filled with archer towers.  When combined with an attack boost, the trebuchet can give every tower an extra shot or 2, a very effective combination.  But since they don’t impact rage or shields, they are usually not the first choice for a supershot.  When defending my own base, when I have a large quantity of supershots (you get far more supershots on your own base when you first defend), I will often supershot the trebuchet on one of my first islands.  This slows the dragon enough to give me an extra second to think and plan my defense.  It is also a tactic that can sometimes cause the attacker to panic a little and use some rage on my weak first islands (first islands are almost always the weakest), against towers that would do minimal damage.
 * 9) Cannon towers are a critical part of your defense, assuming the warrior has a shield.  But never make the mistake of boosting a cannon tower when there is already a blue tower in your grouping of 5.  The blue tower will automatically wipe out the shield, so the supershot on the cannon is not only wasted, but it will reduce the cannon’s damage.  Putting a supershot on your cannon tower requires watching the dragon’s rage and anticipating the attacker’s timing with his shield.  While you cannot see the rage bar on the attacker, you can see when his abilities are highlighted and available.  In my experience, when he has his shield ability available well in advance of an approach of a new island, the probability he shields immediately upon coming into range is high.  If he does not have his shielding ability highlighted, you are best of waiting until he is already in range, then using the cannon supershot as a reaction to his ability coming online.  If he doesn’t have the rage for a shield yet when he comes into range of a new island, it is a better strategy to hi him with a red mage tower supershot, keeping him from generating the necessary rage, while your cannon continues to fire its regular attacks.  I say red because if you had a blue tower in the group, you wouldn’t be considering a cannon supershot.
 * 10) Don’t worry about his healing abilities.  Those abilities, while they can help the attacking dragon, are weak in comparison to the damage he can avoid using his other spells such as wind wall.
 * 11) If the attacker has either explosive or shield of annhilation, you can be certain he will use these abilities early and often.  The key to taking him down will be depriving him of his shielding abilities.  Against these warrior dragons, using blue and red mage tower supershots are your most valuable weapons, with cannon supershots coming in a distant second.  If he has the rage to shield and is not shielded when approaching a new island, I recommend supershotting the cannon so that it will fire a moment after he reaches the island, instead of before he has reached it.  This is because an advanced player will absorb the first shots, then shield, thereby keeping his shield because the supershots hit him before it was up.  Beginning players rarely do this, and if someone puts up their shield while still on the island approach, you can supershot your cannons without risk of your timing being off.
 * 12) If he’s almost dead when approaching a new island, and has the rage to shield, a shield is guaranteed.  You can supershot your cannon well in advance, because you want your hits to get through quickly.  If he has wind wall, he will use it.  So supershot your lightning tower in that case.