Sorcerer Mage

This article is about the tower in Kingdom Rush. For the enemy in Kingdom Rush: Vengeance, see High Sorcerer.

Sorcerer Mage
Type	Magic Tower
Level	4
Introduced	Stormcloud Temple
Build Cost	300G (270G)
Damage	42-78 (49-90)
Attack Rate	Slow (1.5s)
Range	Great
Scope in Major Axis	400 (440)

“

Ashes to ashes!

”

The Sorcerer Mage is a Level 4 Magic Tower in the first Kingdom Rush. Upgraded from the Level 3 Wizard Tower, Sorcerer Mages handle forces that are close to darkness itself. They can summon Elementals, powerful and durable units that do area damage, or Polymorph enemies into harmless sheep. It is the only tower in Kingdom Rush 1 to have an intrinsic passive ability: Cursing attack.

Description

"Sorcerers handle forces that are close to darkness, weaving spells that temporary lower enemy armor and deal damage."

Compared to the Arcane Wizard, the Sorcerer Mage has better crowd control and acts as an excellent support tower, thanks to the Elemental, its ability to lower enemy armor, and its higher attack rate. The Polymorph ability allows even the toughest enemies to be clicked into oblivion.

Its basic attack has a passive ability to curse the target and halve its physical armor for 5 seconds, whilst also dealing extra true damage over time while the curse is applied (10 damage per 1.25s, applied four times during the 5s period, for a total of 40 damage). Curse damage does not stack. If any Sorcerer Mage attacks an already-cursed target, it only resets the duration of the curse.

Note: curse damage is not factored into the tower's damage values. Counting the curse damage, the Sorcerer actually has a higher minimum damage than the Arcane Wizard, and higher DPS in general if it is constantly hitting non-cursed enemies.

Abilities

Polymorph

"Meeeeh!"

Polymorphs enemies into harmless sheep. Sheep are very weak but cannot be blocked.

The Sorcerer transforms the target into a sheep (flying enemies are transformed into flying sheep), rendering them incapable of engaging in combat, disabling any abilities, nullifying armor and magic resistance, and halving their original health. However, sheep are unblockable and will still take lives. They will still be targeted by Reinforcements with Spear Throw, Barbarians with Throwing Axes and ranged Heroes. The transformation is irreversible. (Mini)bosses, Skeletons and Husks are immune to Polymorph. Polymorphed enemies can be clicked/tapped to death, similar to sheep and goat critters on various stages, but do not give gold when killed this way on the Flash version.

Level	Cost	Cooldown
1	300	20 seconds
2	150	18 seconds
3	150	16 seconds

Summon Elemental

"Rock is Eternal"

Summons an Earth Elemental, the stout avatar of the land's power, to block and attack your enemies. (Respawn: 8 seconds)

As the only tower beside the Barracks capable of summoning units on the path, the Summon Elemental ability gives you an exceptionally resilient foot soldier crafted from the spirit of the land itself to support your human soldiers. The Rock Elemental does area damage, dealing damage to at most four targets that are close by. An Elemental killed in a level with a Poison Pool will spawn a bounty-less Swamp Thing.

Heal Rate: 20 HP/s

Level	Cost	HP (Casual)	Damage (2.0s)	Armor
1	350	600 (700)	30-50	40%
2	150	700 (800)	40-60	50%
3	150	800 (900)	50-70	60%

On Flash, the Elemental's damage is higher but attack speed is slower:

Level	Cost	HP	Damage (3.0s)	Armor
1	350	600	50-90	40%
2	150	700	60-100	50%
3	150	800	70-110	60%

Range

Wizard to Sorcerer

Standard range without Upgrades

Elemental rally range

• 43% wider than Mage Tower
• 25% wider than Adept Tower
• 11% wider than Wizard Tower
• Same range as Arcane Wizard and Rangers Hideout
• Elemental's rally point range is 90% of Sorcerer Mage.

Strategy

• Enemies transformed into sheep can be clicked/tapped upon to make them explode, killing them instantly! Fully upgrading Polymorph is 150 gold cheaper than Death Ray, on identical cooldowns. If a player is vigilant with exploding sheep, Polymorph is universally better than Death Ray.
• Although the Sorcerer Mages' regular attack is less damaging than the Arcane Wizard's, it has the ability to output greater DPS if it can constantly hit a non-cursed enemy every shot. Placing Sorcerer Towers near the beginning of the map allows curse to achieve maximum effect.
• The appearance of the elemental does not change when upgraded. However, any hit points lost will be replenished when the ability is upgraded. Use this to your advantage to tank in extremely long periods of active combat.
• The Sorcerer Mage has smart targeting with the basic attack. Instead of targeting the enemy nearest to the exit, it targets the one nearest to the exit without an active curse debuff. Place your towers accordingly.
• Due to Sorcerers having higher effectiveness based on how many enemies they can curse, spamming Sorcerers right next to each other is unwise as they will start hitting the same enemies. Make sure to spread out your Sorcerers in order to maximize the number of enemies cursed.
• Certain enemies will retain some characteristics when polymorphed: for example, Wulves will retain their speed, and flying enemies will turn into flying sheep.

Strengths

• Polymorph, if the player pays attention to explodes the sheep, is effectively an instakill. It is cheaper than Death Ray, has identical cooldowns, and slightly smarter targeting as it ignores skeletons and husks. As long as the player explodes the sheep, Polymorph is universally better than Death Ray.
• Sorcerers have smart targeting with their basic attack, similar to Rangers with poison. They disregard already cursed enemies, to maximize curse damage and armor reduction. They can achieve higher DPS than Arcane Wizards if they can hit a non-cursed enemy every shot.
• Due to their good damage and reasonable rate of fire, Sorcerer Towers are able to shred hordes of low to mid HP enemies. They can also aid physical damage towers, with their armor lowering curse and the Arcane Shatter Upgrade.
• The Elemental is one of the best blocking units in the game, possessing high armor and very high HP which allows it to stall almost any enemy, save for certain bosses with instant kills. When upgraded, it immediately goes to max HP, which can be used to stall for extremely long periods of time.
• Elemental has an area attack, which does physical damage and somewhat mitigates Sorcerer's weakness vs magic resistance.
• Combining Elemental with Polymorph, the elemental can kill off hordes of weaker troops with splash damage, while polymorph takes care of larger troops and the sorcerer tower itself takes down what's left.
  • In addition, the Elementals can stall larger enemies long enough for polymorph to recharge.

Weaknesses

• Sorcerer Mages' Polymorph is not as powerful as Arcane Wizards' Death Ray. The polymorphed enemy will still be targeted by attacks and abilities on it, wasting damage and utility unless the player clicks them to death. However, this issue is trivialized if a player pays attention. On the Flash version clicking these polymorphed enemies to death does not give gold.
• Naturally, high magic resistance enemies resist some of the Sorcerer's damage, although the curse does True Damage and the Elemental deals physical damage, making them more effective against magic resistant enemies than other mages.
• Building too many Sorcerers is inefficient as a lot of their power is in cursing enemies. Building too many means they will run out of enemies to curse, and will start firing at already cursed enemies. The Sorcerer's base attack is quite low without the curse damage. This weakness is similar to Ranger's Hideout poison, where having multiple close to each other is inefficient for the same reason.

Additional Stats

• DPS: 28 to 52 (average 40)
• Total Cost: 800 G (720 G with Hermetic Study)
• Cost Efficiency: 20 gold per point of DPS (18 with Hermetic Study)
• The Empowered Magic upgrade increases the base DPS by 15%: 32.66 to 60 (average 46.33)
• Curse increases the DPS by 10 points per enemy affected (max 4 enemies at a time). Curse does true damage
• Elemental Level 3 increases the DPS by 25 to 35 (average 30) | 23.33 to 36.66 on Flash (average 30)
• Total Cost with abilities fully upgraded: 2050 G (1970 G with Hermetic Study)
• DPS with max abilities and upgrades (single target): 67.66 to 105 (average 86.33)

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 Upgrades for Elemental

• Spiked Armor (3 Stars)
  • When attacked, soldier's spiked armor return a 10% of the damage received to the attacker. Spiked armor also affects Reinforcements and Heroes.

Related achievements

SHEPHERD Polymorph 50 Enemies into sheeps ^[sic].

ELEMENTALIST Summon 5 rock elementals in any one stage.

Quotes

• "Do or do not, there is no try!" (main)
• "Back to the shadows of Hell!" (main)
• "Ashes to ashes!" (main)
• "Meeeeh!" (polymorph) (sound from sheep)

Trivia

• In an early post by the founders, the Earth Elemental was referred to as a "14feet tall brainless giant".
• "Do or do not. There is no try"
  • A line spoken by Yoda in the 1980 film Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
• "Ashes to ashes"
  • Part of the phrase "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" spoken during a burial service, to denote the finality of the corporeal body.
• "Back to the shadows of Hell!"
  • A spoken sentence by Gandalf the Grey when he's in battle with a demon in the film: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
• Polymorph is based on the spell of the same name from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.

Gallery

The Sorcerer's Symbol

The Sorcerer's Curse

Pet rock?

Elemental Smash!

Baaah!

Polymorphing Shot

Rock Elemental vs. Yeti

View All Towers