Nekomancer beginner's guide - 5 tips for keeping the undead at bay

Ah, cats - so incredibly adorable yet so incredibly mischievous. They never seem to run out of chaos to crash into, and in Nekomancer, you play as one such cat that's let its curiosity get the best of it.

In particular, even after your master specifically told you not to, you decide to take a peek at a forbidden book and end up inadvertently unleashing all kinds of undead horrors into the underworld. It's your job, then, to clean up after your own mess and prevent these undead monstrosities from stepping into the portal of the living. That's no easy feat for a lone cat, which is where our Nekomancer beginner's guide comes in.

If you've played any other tower defence game before, the mechanics here are all pretty standard. But in case this is your first foray into this wonderfully pressure-filled yet satisfying world, tower defence usually entails you deploying towers to, well, defend. In Necromancer's case, you place towers to keep hordes of the undead from escaping into the land of the living, with your titular cat hero as a character you can move around and control. And this is where my first tip comes into play.

Tip #1: Keep your cat moving

Given that it's a tower defence, you might be tempted to simply place your towers and leave your cat hero to defend itself throughout the entire wave. While that might work in some cases, more often than not, you'll need to know how to micromanage your feisty feline if you want to make sure no undead evil slips away unnoticed. Later stages will have more and more waves of the undead threatening to overwhelm you with their sheer numbers alone, so if you don't manoeuvre your cat hero, you'll find yourself struggling to keep up.

Of course, different cat heroes have different strengths, and squishy mages won't do too well just standing and holding their ground. You'll really need to move them around to maximise their ranged attacks. Others, like the aptly named Chonky, are meant to be tanks, though - he actually recovers 1 HP per second if he's staying still, so pay attention to those cat skills!

Tip #2: Watch your step and mind the terrain

One of the more interesting things to note in Nekomancer is that the towers you place can actually influence the terrain of the stage you're on. I don't think I've ever encountered anything like this before, not even in the very similar Kingdom Rush Battles. 

What I mean is that when you place a tower on a certain path, that tower effectively blocks that path. Yes, you can easily redirect the flow of incoming enemies if you want to! It's such a fun little element, and something that definitely switches up the strategy when deploying towers. This means that you need to pay attention to how many tiles each tower occupies to see if you'll want to use them to block a certain path.

Enemies don't attack towers - if you place one in their way, they'll simply divert and find a detour somewhere else. This makes creating proper bottlenecks incredibly easy - you can even redirect enemies into traps or choke points so you can eliminate them with ease.

Do note that some towers work hand-in-hand with others, like the Enforcer enhancing the ATK of Mercenaries in a horizontal line. This is something to consider when blocking paths and redirecting traffic - thankfully, you can remove previously placed towers if you need to, although that'll cost you coins as a penalty, so deploy carefully!

Tip #3: Your cat is your last line of defence

And I don't mean that you should keep your cat hero right near the exit portal (although you'll sometimes have to). What I mean is that most enemies don't ignore your cat hero - they'll attack it. As opposed to them completely ignoring towers in their way, a cat hero in an enemy's way means they'll attack you before moving on (except for ghosts and flyers). So, when push comes to shove, you can use your cat to block enemies from further charging into the portal. 

That does mean you'll need to make sure it's alive long enough to kill the enemy, of course, but it's a desperate move that might just save your run in a pinch.

Tip #4: Pay attention to cat and tower synergy

Cat heroes also grant special effects to certain towers, which gives you an idea of how you should build your deck or loadout. Conjuror, for instance, is a projectile-based cat who offers an attack boost to the Mercenary tower, which means it's probably a good idea to pair them up in your deck before you head out.

Meanwhile, Warrior cat grants an extra attack boost to the Arrow Tower, which makes sense given how Warrior is a melee cat and the Arrow Tower is for range. It's tactical combinations like this one that can make or break each run, as you really can't try to win by brute force alone (believe me - I've tried).

Tip #5: Quality, not quantity

For me, what's worked best so far is focusing on upgrading two or three towers rather than deploying a whole bunch of them each time I have enough coins to do so. Not only do the randomised boons keep upgrading your towers, but you can also tap each one you've deployed to see how else you can give them a boost. You can upgrade their attack, range, CRIT%, and so on, which ultimately matters more than having a whole bunch of towers lined up with no upgrades at all.

It also goes without saying that you should tap on all the events, limited-time content, dailies, and mission campaigns once you're back in the main screen, as these will reward you with all the resources you'll need to grab towers and upgrades in the first place. There's a 7-day festival for newbies that'll let you snag some summon gems each day, which is the perfect way to build your tower lineup.

And that's it for our Nekomancer beginner's guide! I'm thoroughly enjoying going through all the runs with all the different towers, and since it's cat-themed, that just makes it all even more enjoyable. I hope this little list of tips helps you with your own runs too, because helping a curious cat fend off the undead is definitely a noble cause, isn't it?