Scientist Guide - Ratropolis

The scientist leader is a geek that has a lot of interesting mechanics. If you like offensive spells, robots that explode on death or cards that you can upgrade by timing your things right, this is the leader for you!

Scientist Leader Abilities

Focus can become very strong if you use some of the Scientist cards that trigger when using a skill. For example, a labor card gets reduced cooldown when using skills and Focus lets you use more skills.

The musketeer card is really cool for that. It's damage increases permanently when you use your leader ability, so reducing the ability's cooldown is a nice synergy.

The effect of discovery itself is a bit weak as it only increases the card selection. I don't recommend leveling it a lot, the difference it makes is small.

Ratron Units

Ratrons are robot units that have a strong “on death” effect. On the other hand, they also give your scrap card which are completely useless and slow you down.

With it's extremely long 5 seconds stun duration, the surprise ratron is very strong! The tainted ratron is also good.

If you can get it, the Fuel skill card is extremely strong with ratrons and can make them a bit overpowered. Above is the +75% damage and +150% movement speed for 10 seconds to all ratrons, for each discarded card. Yep, you read that right!

Tip: if you are also able to get your hands on a ratron factory, it will give you a ton of ratron cards that work perfectly with Fuel. You can use it to summon more ratrons, or you can use it to get 5 more cards just before the start of a battle to spend them with Fuel.

That's a 375% damage and 750% movement speed bonus!

If you have those cards, you might want to go 100% fuel powered ratron units. It works well against pretty much anything except strong enemy AOE damage!

Morph Mechanic

Morph is a Scientist mechanic where a card can be upgraded when you use your leader ability. For some cards, the upgrade is outright better stats. For some others, the card effect is completely different.

Scientist starts out with the Lab Rat card so it is a good example. The Mutant upgraded version has much better stats. 44 health on a cheap 1 cost card? Yes please!

Electron

Scientist has a big focus on the electron effect, with skills that do it, towers that do it and buildings that buff it. There's also a card or two that have improved effects if the enemies have electron stacks on them.

What electron does is that the first two charges on the enemy do nothing, and the third charge “discharges” them all to deal 20 damage. So basically 7 damage per charge if you can get to three charges.

I'm not a big fan of this effect as it isn't reliable. Enemies will often die before you get to three charges so the first two are wasted. You have to get a lot of electron card for it to become worthwhile and even then, it still depends too much on luck. The lightning rod tower would be interesting if it's range wasn't so tiny.

With the exception of Thunderstorm (extremely strong by itself), my recommendation is not to focus on electron too much.

Tainted

Tainted on the other hand is great! The enemy receives 10% more damage for each tainted stack.

My favorite here is the Plague Doctor. Very long range, AOE attack that adds 1 tainted stack to all enemies hit. Get a few of them and a few seconds later, the enemies take twice as much damage from hits.

It's good against everything and incredible against bosses!