Summary
- The Scorcher is the 8th troop unlocked, at Headquarters level 18.
- The Scorcher has short range, moderate DPS and decent speed, along with very high health.
- After attacking a building for a few seconds, the Scorcher will change targets, provided if there is a valid one nearby. Like Flamethrowers, Scorchers can temporarily ignite their target for five seconds, removing any ice-based effects.
- When destroyed, the Scorcher explodes, which deals damage to nearby Buildings and Troops. This value is not subject to magma statues.
- Each Scorcher costs 8 Gunboat Energy to deploy.
Visual Appearance
- The Scorcher is a Tank-like vehicle that has a flamethrower instead of a cannon. It has a trapezoidal turret and the barrel has a blue sheath that holds another, smaller barrel that feeds the pilot light, a canister in front of the muzzle with a blue flame.
- It has red, battle-damaged armor with visible bolts and a massive blue fuel tank outfitted on its rear hull. There are two viewports on the front and a large plow.
Offensive Strategy
- Like the Heavy, Scorcher boasts high health but terrible DPS for the space it takes, so it is best used as a distraction to protect other low health but high DPS boasting troops.
- However, unlike Heavies, Scorchers still have significant DPS in numbers, and since they are faster, it is possible for all-Scorcher armies to devastate bases, given the energy cost required to deploy them could be managed.
- Since the Scorcher changes target every few seconds, it will move farther into the base than Heavies would, causing it to absorb massive amounts of unnecessary damage and potentially disrupting your other units. This can also be desirable in some situations, such as redirecting attacks from defenses like Lazor Beams so they do not unintentionally hit the frail DPS units behind it.
- If you want the Scorchers to attack one particular building without them switching madly, the best thing to do would be to use a Flare to direct the Scorchers manually. This, however, would not work well unless they comprise the majority of your army, as once the building is gone the Scorcher will begin wandering around again.
- Zookas, Laser Rangers, and Bombardiers work well with the Scorcher, as it moves quickly and can take the heat to keep these troops alive.
- However, unlike with Heavies, Scorchers number far less and will not efficiently clear Mines. Scorchers can also wander into blind spots and ruin your attack.
- Tanks, despite their low DPS for the space they take, are great to use with Scorchers since they have significantly more health. Defenses such as Mines, Rocket Launchers and Lazor Beams wouldn't affect them as much. You only need to worry about their universal counters, namely heavy defenses like Cannons, Boom Cannons and Doom Cannons. You can also have Pvt. Bullit to assist, as his hero perk makes him particularly strong against heavy defenses, covering for their weaknesses.
- Riflemen do not work as well with the Scorcher as their short range effectively prevents the Scorcher from guarding them, and they can also be easily killed by the Scorcher's death explosion.
- It is not recommended to use Medics when using Scorchers, as Scorchers tend to put them in the line of fire.
- Scorchers may not work as well with units that use ice-based effects, such as Cryoneers, Cryobombardier and the CryoTank, as its incendiary attacks can defrost affected defenses and remove the fire rate penalty while torching them randomly. Cryoneers and CryoTank may even unintentionally slow the Scorcher, making it more vulnerable to other defenses. On the other hand, these units (particularly Cryoneer and CryoTank) still appreciate cover from Scorchers, whose protection allows them to hit buildings they normally won't be able to target safely, thus greatly increasing their lifespan overall.
Defensive Strategy
- Place your Cannons and Boom Cannons behind other Buildings so they can easily whittle down the Scorcher, but not too close for Shock Bombs to disable groups of them.
- The best strategy for defending against a Scorcher army may be to focus on defeating the damage-dealing troops behind the Scorcher, as Scorchers don't carry enough DPS to finish off attacks on their own.
- Keep your Cannons and Boom Cannons separate from your Rocket Launchers. When the Scorcher enters the Rocket Launcher's blind spot, the Rocket Launcher will fire at the Troops behind the Scorcher.
- Good Mine spacing will be effective in taking out Zookas behind Scorchers since the Scorchers are unlikely to hit many of the Mines. Unlike a Heavy-Zooka army, there are big spaces between the damage-soakers, the Scorchers, which cause many more Mines to pass behind them and hit the troops behind them.
- Make sure it is hard to avoid most of your Boom Mines. They can deal decent damage to Scorchers.
- High level Machine Guns can also heavily damage Scorchers since the Scorcher will move close to the Machine Gun after it stops targeting it and moves to target the building next to the Machine Gun.
- Shock Launchers are good at hindering all Scorcher raids, since there are so few Scorchers on the battlefield that even immobilizing a few will result in a large reduction in firepower. However, much like Boom Cannons, Shock Launchers can also become priority targets to Shock Bombs, Artillery or Barrages.
- The Doom Cannon is very effective at picking off Scorchers as it boasts immense damage, enough to destroy Scorchers in a few hits.
Upgrade Differences
- There are no visual changes between levels, but each upgrade increases the Scorcher's hitpoints (by approximately 7%), DPS (by approximately 10%), and training cost (by 5000 gold).
Trivia
- Despite the cover art not having hazard tape on the plow, the in-game models' plow has hazard tape.
- Unlike the Tank, Scorcher's driver is not visible.
- Given damaging Gunboat weaponry can't be used, a Scorcher is the last unit remaining, and the death explosion manages to destroy the HQ (or equivalent), any remaining buildings do not explode, and no rewards can be earned, despite attacker emerging victorious.
- Despite its increased bulk and heavy armor, it still moves faster than the Tank.
- The Scorcher used to have the highest unit size of all troops, at 21. Its current value of 14, which is the current highest, is tied with the Mech, Incinerator, Critter Cannon, CryoTank, Lazortron, Rain Maker, Heavy Choppa, and Rocket Choppa.
- While under the effects of the best Troop Health Masterpiece and 11 Guardians boosted with Power Powder, the Scorcher can have up to 253,340 health.
- You can have a maximum of 16 Scorchers in a complete set of fully upgraded Landing Crafts.
- The Scorcher (death explosion), Incinerator (death explosion), Lazortron, Rain Maker and Grenadier are currently the only troops that can damage other friendly troops, although the Cryoneer can slow friendly troops.
- The Incinerator's in-game model is identical to the Scorcher,
- The Blackguard version of the Scorcher is still red, but its cupola, gun mantlet, barrel sheath & fuel tank are black.
Statistics
Unit Size |
Training Time |
Movement Speed |
Attack Range |
Attack Speed |
Explosion on Death Radius |
Headquarters Level Required |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
14 | 50m |
Moderate / 230 |
Medium / 3.3-7 Tiles | 0.5s | 3 Tiles | 18 |
^ After a Scorcher has been attacking a building for a total of 2.5 seconds, the building catches fire and begins to burn which does additional damage aside from the Scorcher's Standard DPS. This is why the DPS displayed in-game is approximated.
* Buildings that the Scorcher hit continue to burn for 5 seconds after the Scorcher stops firing at them. The "Residual Burn Damage" column is the total damage that the building takes during those 5 seconds while a Scorcher is not actively attacking it.
Warships
Rank |
Level |
Reserves Size |
Upgrade Tokens |
Tech Level |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | 11 | N/A | 5 |
2 | 3 | 13 | 135,500 | 10 |
3 | 5 | 15 | 164,000 | 15 |
4 | 7 | 18 | 198,500 | 20 |
5 | 9 | 20 | 270,000 | 25 |
Total | 768,000 | 75 |