A Guide to Cat Cannons
Contents
Normal Cannon
The basic cannon; this should be your go-to for most stages. Great for clearing weak peons across the whole field, interrupting or syncing enemies, gaining a bit of distance, and clipping.
This cannon’s attack counts as a wave, and therefore has no effect against enemies with wave immunity. However, it can still affect enemies that have knockback immunity.
The following are cannons built using materials acquired from SoL / UL stages.
Slow Beam
Stats & Gains per level
- Level 1 - 30f (1s) Slow Duration
- +2~3f per level till 10
- Level 10 - 50f (1.67s) Slow Duration
- +5f per level till 30
- Level 20 - 100f (3.33s) Slow Duration
- Level 30 - 150f (5s) Slow Duration
Slows all enemies on the field with a wave similar to the regular cannon, without the delay. This cannon has very limited uses, but one of those is slowing enemies on base hit (either to prevent enemies clipping into your frontline such as brollows, or to cheese stages). It can be used in other ways, such as in Floor 30, but most of the time you’d be better off using another cannon instead.
Other Notes- Slow Beam does not deal damage, regardless of its level.
- Requires level 7~8 to be usable.
Upgrading Priority: Low
Iron Wall
Stats & Gains per level
- Level 1 - 60f (2s) Max Duration, 5 HP
- +3~4f duration, +1 HP per level till 10
- Level 10 - 90f (3s) Max Duration, 14 HP
- +3~6f duration, +0~1 HP per level till 30
- Level 20 - 135f (4.5s) Max Duration, 16 HP
- Level 30 - 180f (6s) Max Duration, 18 HP
Spawns a metal wall in front of the nearest enemy. This wall counts as a cat unit, meaning it takes up a slot in the cat limit and is vulnerable to critical hits. It stays on the field until the end of its max duration or until it loses all of its HP, whichever comes first.
Similarly to Slow Beam, this cannon has very limited usage and is most often used to trap enemies behind their base when you trigger a boss wave, either to prevent them from clipping into your frontline or to cheese the stage. You could use it to temporarily stop enemies from pushing, but other cannons will often provide better results.
Other Notes- This should be obvious, but this cannon does not deal any damage.
- Usable at any level; the higher the better.
Upgrading Priority: Low
Thunderbolt
Stats & Gains per level
- Level 1 - 15f (0.5s) Freeze Duration, 30% Damage (of regular cannon)
- +1~2f Freeze Duration, +1% Damage per level till 10
- Level 10 - 30f (1s) Freeze Duration, 39% Damage
- +3f Freeze Duration, +0~1% Damage per level till 30
- Level 20 - 60f (2s) Freeze Duration, 48% Damage
- Level 30 - 90f (3s) Freeze Duration, 57% Damage
Freezes enemies nearest to the target point. Thunderbolt does not affect the whole field, instead targeting enemies based on the farthest ahead cat unit.
Unlike Slow Beam, this cannon will turn up decent results in generic stages (though it’s still often better to use Normal cannon or Breakerblast instead). Best used to approach enemies you wouldn’t usually be able to and deal quick damage, i.e. using Awakened Bahamut on Professor A.
Other Notes- Requires level 7~8 to be usable.
Upgrading Priority: Mid
Waterblast
Stats & Gains per level
- Level 1 - 11% Power (of the enemy's HP)
- +1% Power per level till 10
- Level 10 - 20% Power
- +1~2% Power per level till 20
- Level 20 - 35% Power
- +1% Power per level till 30
- Level 30 - 45% Power
Hits in an area in front of the farthest ahead cat unit. This cannon only affects metal enemies, taking away a percentage of their remaining HP, meaning it cannot kill.
It works very well for what it does, but isn’t really worth upgrading due to it needing a lot of resources relative to its overall usability, which is very limited.
Other Notes- Waterblast does a tiny amount of damage to non-metal enemies - see here.
- Requires a high level to work (ideally 10 or higher).
Upgrading Priority: Low
Holy Blast
Stats & Gains per level
-
Level 1 - 0.5% Power (against surface zombies), 10% Power (against burrowed zombies), 30f (1s)
Freeze Duration
- +0.2~0.3% Surface Power, +0.5~0.6% Burrowed Power, +1~2f Freeze Duration per level till 10
- Level 10 - 2.5% Surface Power, 15% Burrowed Power, 44f (1.47s) Freeze Duration
- +0.7~0.8% Surface Power, +1.5% Burrowed Power, +1~2f Freeze Duration per level till 20
- Level 20 - 10% Surface Power, 30% Burrowed Power, 60f (2s) Freeze Duration
- +0.5% Surface Power, +1% Burrowed Power, +1~2f Freeze Duration per level till 30
- Level 30 - 15% Surface Power, 40% Burrowed Power, 75f (2.5s) Freeze Duration
Fires a wave, covering the whole stage. This cannon only affects Zombies, taking away a percentage of their max HP (meaning it can deal the killing blow; the cannon also has the Zombie Killer ability), freezing them for a short time, knocking them back (counts as a wave, see the normal cannon’s description for details), and even bringing them back above ground if they were burrowing.
Holy Blast works extremely well against zombies, as a badly timed burrow can often badly mess you up. It's a staple to hold ground in late-game zombie stages like Panic Tower or Unauthorised Breathing.
Other Notes- Usable at any level since the main appeal is the ability to unburrow, but the higher damage associated with a higher level is very nice.
- This cannon is also incredibly useful on Daboo and Z-Onel stages, especially when levelled to 18~20.
Upgrading Priority: High
Breakerblast
Stats & Gains per level
- Level 1 - 160 Range, 30% Damage (of regular cannon)
- +4~5 Range, +2~3% Damage per level till 10
- Level 10 - 200 Range, 50% Damage
- +12 Range, +5% Damage per level till 20
- Level 20 - 320 Range, 100% Damage
- +8 Range, +5% Damage per level till 30
- Level 30 - 400 Range, 150% Damage
This cannon hits all enemies in a definite hit area and targets the nearest enemy. It counts as a knockback effect, meaning kb-immune enemies are safe against it.
This is the best cannon when it comes to gaining stage distance and pushing back enemies, and is the second best cannon overall. Its only downside compared to the regular cannon is that it might sometimes knock back the frontline only and cause your units to die to the enemy backline, though this rarely happens. Despite this, Breakerblast is far easier to time due to it having a much shorter delay, and it not being affected by stage width.
Other Notes- Usable at any level, but the extra reach is always appreciated.
Upgrading Priority: Mid
Curseblast
Stats & Gains per level
- Level 1 - 33f (1.1s) Curse Duration
- +3f per level till 10
- Level 10 - 60f (2s) Curse Duration
- +6f per level till 20
- Level 20 - 120f (4s) Curse Duration
- +6f per level till 30
- Level 30 - 180f (6s) Curse Duration
Curses all enemies on the field with a wave similar to the Slow Beam. It nullifies the effect of enemy abilities such as Weaken, Freeze, Slow, Knockback, Dodge Attack, Curse and Toxic.
This cannon has very niche usage, limited to enemies that inflict status effects like Henry, Croakley, Queen B or Papuu. On these stages, this cannon can buy time equal to the enemy’s attack cycle; as opposed to regular cannon which will only reset their attack animation. This can be useful to approach these enemies without being affected by their status effects (e.g. Queen B. in Floor 45).
Other Notes- Usable at any level but the extra duration makes timing it easier.
- Levelling doesn't immediately give value as long as curse duration is shorter than one enemy attack cycle
Upgrading Priority: Low
Thanks for reading!
Be sure to refer to this page for level-specific cannon stats and upgrading costs, and also make sure to check out some of the other documents.
Credits
Waran-Ess#9801 (original guide redaction)
Pandango#2883 (level 30 cannon stats, Curseblast section, and web conversion)