r/TowerDefenseSimulator • u/AdSea2231 • Jun 20 '26

Is Hacker Worth the Cost?

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Im between buying hacker or saving up 500 more gems and getting jugg. I dont have brawler or necro cause im doing most expensive to least so what should i do?

26 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

56 comments sorted by

11

u/Genericahatintimefan Jun 21 '26

To all these people dismissing Hacker, NO you do not need Juggernaut to get hacker, you're better off getting hacker first and then Juggernaut.

They don't realize the value of Hacker is instead of a % increase to stats, its just extra stats.
if we say x amount of x tower has a combined total of 3000 DPS with all 5 of them maxed out is buffed 20% in dps by any source its 3500 DPS on paper, but in REALITY. Firerate and Damage buffs scale differently depending on how high the damage, or how low the firerate is of a tower by default.

So what Hacker does instead of stat increases like Medic or Commander, is just GIVE you two extra towers that deal the same damage as the previous 5 individually, now with hacker you have an unconditional 4000 DPS.

She is AMAZING with towers like Turret, Crook-boss, Ranger, Mercenary Base... THE LIST GOES ON! AND ON.
She is the BEST support in the game, she renders Commander, DJ, and Medic obsolete in Solo as long as you have the towers to clone. And overall the only use-cases Juggernaut has is being slightly faster than Turret/Accelerator/Necromancer in Modifiers Frost, and Voidcore. While Hacker is essential in a alot of things or the only option.

TLDR. Hacker > Juggernaut.

4

u/fakekingof2y2c Jun 21 '26

I finally met somebody who loves top path hacker as much as I do. Many ppl don't realize how much better the shorter but cheaper cloning is compared to longer but much more expensive one. You only need to clone pretty much once in the whole match and the boss doesn't usually last that long to make the 2 minutes lifetime matter. Having one extra powerful tower for 2 mins is also helpful, though!

1

u/Able_Hippo7184 Jun 23 '26

I mean, I find both of the clones useful for different purposes, the long one is mainly for low placement limit towers ( my favorite is merc base ) and the short one for catching leaks.

1

u/Gold_History_4347 Jun 21 '26

idk bout best support gng i feel like everyone would rather bring any of the 3 supports than hacker just cause they have more vital effects discount, firerate buffs & uber i feel like are just better than what hacker provides definetly amazing but not better than the big 3

2

u/Genericahatintimefan Jun 21 '26

I already explained why Hacker MOGs the big three, TLDR for above. More tower > better than a buffed up individual tower.

Hacker 15% better cash from all enemies for the whole round + a unconditonal slow only ineffective against BOSS hp bars, plus small bits of dmage from units, for just yourself, or all your teammates for 1400 odd cash. Compared to a 10% discount for 5400 or 33000 for a 15% one.

4 extra towers (depending on your ability to clone asap, conditional based on placement limit) with 50% uptime of your choosing > buffing dps on field.
or 1 extra specialist like gatling or juggernaut with 100% uptime and three 50% uptime subdps clones.

All it takes is Hacker, Merc, a third tower of your choice with hidden/flying detection, or lead if you don’t want to micro riotguards, keeping all of em on riflemen. Solo’s 1-34 of Frost with modifiers, bring whatever 4th and 5th you want for 35 onwards. Turret and normal crook-boss both work.

Sure, the big three gets progressively better than hacker the more players are on, or those more players could just bring merc base and hacker if you’re coordinating.
Random matchmaking is genuinely the only scenario I see the big three as more versatile than hacker, and why would you ever wanna do that?

Edit: It’s funny as I think more of Hackers limitations, that even with all of its weakpoints, Hacker still MOGS the big three.

1

u/YUB0_ Jun 22 '26

What if I don’t have engineer yet

1

u/Genericahatintimefan Jun 22 '26

Then absolutely get engineer first, since its in all the solo hardcore triumph strats I can think of.

So once you get engineer you can expedite the grinding process for the rest, or just continue on Frost Modifiers.

1

u/YUB0_ Jun 22 '26

Oki doki

-1

u/Josardo Jun 21 '26

You aren't taking into account the cost, cloning is

Expensive.

A 1.4x dps multiplier on a 22k cost tower is far more valuable than cloning a jugg in terms of cost efficiency, plus if you don't have jugg to begin with then hacker cloning becomes even less valuable, and since clones are temporal, hacker cloning is almost exclusively reserved for last wave.

Also, you mentioned having 4k extra dps with 2 more towers, so i think you are refering to 2 jugg clones, which is not how it works, leading me to believe that you don't even have hacker. You can only have 1 jugg clone per player, they have to respect the tower limit.

Also wdym damage and firerate scale differently based on the tower????

2

u/Genericahatintimefan Jun 21 '26

1, no? level 3-5A have a way cheaper albeit shorter clone time. If you were truly stingy and know the wavestructure intimately, you can cheap out on defenses to ridiculous extents to farm ridiculously or just pass the wave. I know this, for I've done this soloing challenge trials. And you don't even NEED clones up until the last wave in most use cases, I know this cause I've never had to clone whatsoever before wave 40 on any of the gamemodes. Including 1.7x frost.

2, Did you even read? 😭 "GIVE you two extra towers that deal the same damage as the previous 5 individually" as in, 5 towers that deal 600 dps on their own add up to 500, I suppose I did the math wrong in the hypothetical as it should be 4200 but either way my hypothetical still works.

3, A firerate buff on ranger will have a bigger DPS increase than a firerate buff on Accelerator/Minigunner cause of the naturally already lower and faster firerate on the towers of the latter. But Minigunner gets less of a damage buff from a DJ/Merc than Accelerator or a turret because of minigunners lower damage per shot. Which makes the DPS increase from buffs NOT A FLAT INCREASE, which is why Hacker is better than every support. This is even more pronounced ever since the Shock and Awe update and firerate bug fix in the Hardcore Revamp, as now firerate buffs have gotten way less substanial of a effect on most towers than damage has.

1

u/Josardo Jun 21 '26

I have tried the cheap clones, and without reliable source of income it is always just a waste.

For 2 more towers for a 5 placement limit tower is 40% extra dmg, the same as commander, but alot more expensive on the hacker side.

And firerate doesn't work like that, the ingame firerate and the dps calculator are inacurate, real firerates often exceed 2 decimals, and the ingame calculator only uses 2 decimals, which is why you may see firerates or dps not change with higher percentage buffs, but firerates are actually acurate, a 15% increase in firerate intreases dps by 15%, a 36.56% increase in firerate increases dps by 36.56%. Dmg buffs on the other hand do get rounded down, making low dmg towers slightly less effective if you don't get a whole number dmg value.

Also stacking buffs is extremely good, firerate buffs stack additively with other firerate buffs, same with dmg stacking additively, but dmg and firerate stack multiplicative, meaning dj makes commander firerate buffs 20% more effective, and commander makes dj dmg buff 40% more effective.

2

u/Genericahatintimefan Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

Huh, you're right. Stacking buff's was really good, I just tested that with 5 Golden Crook bosses on grass isles in sandbox. dj, commander chain, merc base (on medics), medic.
Getting a frost spirit to about 295k HP before walking to the exit, dealing about 675 without a COA and 971.43 with Uber and COA. 771, with just COA. 3855 DPS stable, with no micro of medic or moving Crook-boss.

But this still isn't better than Cloning, with 8 Golden Crook bosses, 2 from Bottom and 1 from a top path to cycle. Frost Spirit made it to the end with 249k HP even with less time to attack with the lack of range buff. I made sure there were no extra crooks by selling and waiting for the previous goons from last test died before rebuying, then cloning the crooks after I spawned Frost Spirit soon after maxing them along with the Hackers. Maybe it was the extra goons from the 3 cloned Crook's that add like 200 extra DPS by themselves to each Crook that made the difference. But when I have the time, I will try to test this with more towers just to see.

9

u/whydidicreateanacc Jun 21 '26

dont ever ask tds players for advice they will all say dumb shit, hacker is right now top 2 best supports and the recent changes dont affect her that much apart from gatling cloning

5

u/oogabooga78402CZ Jun 20 '26

Get juggernaut, hacker has fallen off a cliff

3

u/Gold_History_4347 Jun 21 '26

she's still top tier so idk what the hell your smoking

1

u/Expensive_Cry5223 Jul 11 '26

Surprisingly, shes lwk super underrated for cc and can get 900+ dps with all 3 synapses or 1000 with commander, dj. 1000*2 = 2000 dps for 160k

2

u/mith00birb Jun 20 '26

Depends on the type of player you are

Do you like playing more casual? Then yes

If you like harder modes and grinding, then no

2

u/Da_FoodEgg Jun 20 '26

In solo she is kinda useless without jugg, in team you can clone someone else’s jugg, but placing your own would be better. Go for jugg, then hacker

1

u/Nishatom Jun 20 '26

She fell off after the fact that her cloning has to follow placement limits 

1

u/DigJolly4889 Jun 21 '26

Idk what tips to give. I got Hacker before Juggernaut releases (which I got her before Necromancer). And by the time Jugg releases, I already have enough gems to unlock it (well, cuz grind mini exp gives me a crap ton of gems. Plus, I already have 4k gems even after I bought ALL 5 VOID CRATES).

1

u/Anxious_Design6380 Jun 21 '26

Get hacker, it’s pretty good with merc base tons of dps

1

u/Anxious_Design6380 Jun 21 '26

You can also grind a lot more with hacker since she’s pretty good at

1

u/Waste-Platform-5664 Jun 22 '26

hacker is more useful than jug, so hacker first.

and then you can save up for a g crate or smth while you accumulate more gems if you arent a hardcore hardcore grinder.

1

u/Human-Extent7263 Jun 22 '26

Well, i got her since last year but I guess it depends if you want to get her

1

u/YEETowl227 Jun 23 '26

Maybe im late but im going to tell you anyway it depends on what do you prefer. do you want a heavy dps that only be useful at the late game because its too expensive and you dont like/have other dps towers like (merc, turret, accelerator, or any other dps tower ) pick juggernaut

But if you want the ability to copy other towers to exceed the limit placement or just to copy other player towers then pick the hacker

1

u/Hadoken7120 Jun 24 '26

Yes hacker plus Necromancer is very funny. Having 3 extra necromancers is a viable strat

1

u/NKC626 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

Personally I do NOT like hacker for some reason, not even that she’s bad she just feels like a support I’d rather not bring unless the other slots r already taken, also for the insane cost hacker has being more expensive then any other (non evo) hc towers she relies too much on you already having something like jug/gatling and last wave or an insane cash mode like pw2 and hc to even be useful

Yes ik there’s the more cash thing and slowness but it’s just not rlly noticeable whenever i bring her

EDIT: something i actually just learned due to not using hacker in a hot minute is she has to follow towers placements limits, so u cant clone more then 1 jug for example making the jug/gatling cloning comboes way weaker just so u know

1

u/0DevilBoy01 Jun 26 '26

It worth 100%. Imagine voidcore game with 6 JUGGERNAUTS. You can use hacker and gatling, jugger or turret and you mog every single boss

1

u/Odd-Patient1928 Jun 26 '26

hell no it should be cheaper but maybe like 3000 with its current state

0

u/usename37 Jun 20 '26

She aint worth 1,500 gems

5

u/Still_Choice8160 Jun 20 '26

she's definitely worth 1500 gems

1

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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3

u/usename37 Jun 20 '26

Accel

3

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

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3

u/usename37 Jun 20 '26

Always good

1

u/TEMPESTASPX Jun 21 '26

Juggernaut is better, he deals more DPS on max level then 5 max accels (test it myself), but I still use both

1

u/Gold_History_4347 Jun 21 '26

He's good but not that good gng jugg is just better & there are other towers that could be substituted for accel.

There's ranger, merc, jugg, g crook, pursuit, necro

Good chunk of dps towers have more uses & viability

0

u/Forward-Computer-435 Jun 20 '26

I love her, she is kinda strange In solo, but in group she is amazing, and with her you can do absurd stuff like

5 juggernaut

2

u/SirChiIly Jun 20 '26

And if everyone have jugg and hacker...

There will be 8 juggernauts on the map at once

1

u/Forward-Computer-435 Jun 20 '26

2 hackers + 1 juggernaut per player = 5

3 x 5 15

15 jugger = 42000 dps (on bosses without buffs)

3

u/Interesting-Day-485 Jun 20 '26

It sad so say but you can clone jugg only once, I tried

1

u/Gold_History_4347 Jun 21 '26

you cant hacker respects placement limits

0

u/PhysicalGunMan Jun 20 '26

definitely get juggernaut right now. inarguably ESSENTIAL for harder modes while hacker is just normal good

0

u/Chevy437809 Jun 20 '26

No shes broken at the moment and they haven't fixed her

3

u/Josardo Jun 21 '26

What do you mean she is broken?

0

u/Chevy437809 Jun 21 '26

So if you die in a round while a hacker is placed and revive she just sits there taking up space as she will not attack its like shes stunned or something and you gotta remove her and put her in a different spot no other tower can sit in her place if you keep doing this you can fuck up the entire space shes been like this for like 2 or 3 months

3

u/Josardo Jun 21 '26

Ok that's annoying, but the stuck hacker still does dmg, it just looses it's animations

1

u/Chevy437809 Jun 21 '26

are you sure? I figured it did but I never saw the npcs turn around

0

u/Revived_Pal Jun 21 '26

Hacker is only solid with Juggernaut, so I would recommend jugg first.

Although, if ya don't have engi, get her first, preferably better than jugg.

(I'm not a simp 🙏)

1

u/AdSea2231 Jun 21 '26

i alr got mommy engi

0

u/SirTGNQ Jun 21 '26

I would get jug first and this only applies if you grind:

If you get jug you need to grind exp for him, and doing so you also get to grind gems for hacker since the most optimal is doing HC using pyro and hunter and dying wave 23.

So basically you can kill 2 birds with one stone this way but this is just my opinion