Arcane Wizard

Kingdom Rush

“

Klaatu Barada Nikto!

”

The Arcane Wizard, called Arcane Tower on the iPhone version, is a Level 4 Magic tower in the original Kingdom Rush, with a wide range and the highest damage per shot out of any tower. Its spells include Teleport, which teleports a group of enemies back, and Death Ray, which instakills any non-boss enemy regardless of health or resistance.

Compared to the other Level 4 Mage Tower, the Sorcerer Mage, the Arcane Wizard tends to be better against fewer, tougher enemies, but lacks crowd control, though this is slightly mitigated by Teleport.

Description[]

"Arcane wizards focus on altering reality; as well as shooting the deadliest magical ray known to man."

The Arcane Wizard is a true powerhouse. Its high-damage, channeled spell can one-shot most smaller monsters and make short work of other enemies with high HP or armor, be it on the ground or in the air. It also harnesses the power of the deadliest ray known to man: the Death Ray, which can turn any monster to dust in one hit. It is first available at The Citadel.

Abilities[]

Death Ray[]

"Avada Kedavra!"

Disintegrates an enemy* into fine creep dust.

*: Excludes bosses and mini-bosses.

Level	Cost	Cooldown
1	350	20 seconds
2	200	18 seconds
3	200	16 seconds

Teleport[]

"Space is merely a perception, a concern for mortal men."

Teleports a group of enemies** back down the path. (Cooldown: 10 seconds)

**: Excludes bosses and mini-bosses. An enemy can only be teleported up to 3 times.

Level	Cost	Maximum Targets	Transfer Distance
1	300	4	21-30 nodes
2	100	5	26-35 nodes
3	100	6	31-40 nodes

Range[]

43% wider than Mages Guild
25% wider than Adept Tower
11% wider than Wizard Tower
Same range as Sorcerer Mage and Rangers Hideout

Strategy[]

The Arcane Wizard is a powerful mage, specialized in decimating armored enemies one by one. It deals a huge amount of damage with each shot, higher than any other tower in Kingdom Rush, and ignores armor, making it a great counter to heavily armored enemies, and tough enemies in general, such as the Dark Knight, Dark Slayer, Yeti, Magma Elemental, etc.
Death Ray is the most reliable instant kill of all instant kills in Kingdom Rush and gains all of its might immediately at level 1, but it suffers from a lengthy recharge. It can be upgraded to reduce the cooldown, but only by a maximum of 21%, so if the player has multiple Arcane Wizards it is better to upgrade each of them to Death Ray tier I first.
- Death Ray should be used to quickly eliminate tough enemies, especially Forest Trolls and Troll Breakers, which are extremely durable due to their regeneration rate. Any high HP or high priority target such as Dark Slayers, Demon Lords, Demon Legions, Yetis and Magma Elementals are also good targets.
- As a mini-boss, Cerberus is immune to all instant kills, including Death Ray, so it cannot be countered by this skill.
- Death Ray is wasted for fast and/or numerous enemies (e.g. Wulves, Worgs, Giant Spiders).
Teleport is the only ability in Kingdom Rush that is able to move enemies backward. It isn't usually necessary to (fully) upgrade this skill.
- Teleport can significantly slow down the progress of small groups of enemies, thanks to its quick cooldown. Use it to counter semi-durable foes that come in numbers, such as Troll Champions, Orc Champions or Demon Legions, to buy more time for the Arcane Wizard and other towers to kill them.
- Teleport is not very good at holding back fast enemies, such as Wulves, but is able to stall large, slow enemies such as Forest Trolls, Troll Breakers, Dark Slayers, Yetis and Magma Elementals. It allows time for other towers to damage them and for Death Ray to recharge.
- A Teleport Chain is created by a few Arcane Wizards placed spaced from each other so that when a group of enemies is teleported by one wizard, the next can catch and teleport them back even further. This requires quite a bit of gold, luck and good planning.
- It is recommended to place the Arcane Wizard around the back of your defense, where only the strongest foes can make it to. This is so that the wizard can focus its damage, teleport, and Death Ray on them instead of wasting abilities on weaker enemies.

Strengths[]

The Arcane Wizard specializes in killing larger opponents; Death Ray can kill any non-boss enemy instantly and Teleport can stall slower enemies indefinitely.
Arcane Wizard is effective against bosses as it has the highest DPS respective of its damage type (physical damage being Ranger's Hideout).
Dark Knights and Dark Slayers are often spammed in later levels. Arcane Wizard is extremely effective versus them.
Magma Elementals, Forest Trolls, Troll Breakers, Pillagers, Swamp Things, Gulaemons, and Abominations are extremely problematic enemies due to the sheer amount of damage they can soak up. They are completely countered by Death Ray and Teleport as all those enemies have extremely high HP and move very slowly.

Weaknesses[]

The Arcane Wizard deals purely magic damage, so magic resistant foes, such as Winter Wolves and most Demons, take far less damage.
The Arcane Wizard has the worst crowd control of any tower in the game. It has the slowest fire rate among all magic towers in the series, and Teleport is a poor ability against large crowds.
Due to Death Ray and its slow firing, high damage basic attack, it is not uncommon to waste a large amount of potential damage on low-HP enemies.
Many demon and spider enemies have magic resistance, so Arcane Wizard is often a poor choice for the Burning Torment mini-campaign, and Sarelgaz's Lair.

Additional Stats[]

DPS: 38 to 70 (average 54)
Total Cost: 800 G (720 G with Hermetic Study)
Cost Efficiency: 14.81 gold per point of DPS (13.33 with Hermetic Study)
The Empowered Magic upgrade increases the base DPS by 15%: 44 to 80.5 (average 62.25)
Total Cost with abilities fully upgraded: 2050 G (1970 G with Hermetic Study)

Related Upgrades[]

Spell Reach (1 Star)
- Increases wizard's attack range (by 10%).
Arcane Shatter (1 Star)
- Magic attacks destroy a potion of enemy physical armor on every hit.
  - (-3% armor per hit, percentage points, doesn't work on enemies with physical damage immunity.)
Hermetic Study (2 Stars)
- Mage Towers construction and upgrading costs are reduced by 10%.
Empowered Magic (2 Stars)
- Increases wizard's attack damage (by 15%).
Slow Curse (3 Stars)
- Magic attacks slow enemies by half their speed for a moment
  - (half a second, Arcane Wizard the whole one-second beam duration. Also disables Rocket Rider Turbo boost).

Related Achievements[]

DUST TO DUST Disintegrate 50 or more enemies.

BEAM ME UP SCOTTY Teleport 250 or more enemies.

Quotes[]

"Klaatu Barada Nikto!" (main)
"Avada Kedavra!" (Death Ray)
"You shall not pass!" (Teleport)

Trivia[]

"Klaatu barada nikto"
- A line spoken by the character Klaatu in 1951 film The Day The Earth Stood Still. The phrase was used to stop the robot Gort from destroying the Earth. The phrase has been used in many other games, films and TV shows since.
"Avada Kedavra"
- The spoken word for the unforgivable killing spell used in the Harry Potter series (book and film), which kills the target outright. The character Harry Potter is the only person known to have survived the spell.
"You shall not pass"
- A line spoken by Gandalf in the 2001 film Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, when confronting a Balrog and stopping it from reaching the other members of the fellowship. The line is slightly different in the original text, reading "You cannot pass.". However, in the Peter Jackson film, the line is 'You shall not pass!'

Gallery[]

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