All Star Tower Defense Characters Guide: ASTD Tier List

Level the unit that reaches its final upgrade cheapest, not the one with the rarest label. In ASTD, a character’s real value is the ratio between what it does at max upgrade and what that upgrade ladder costs you in cash — a Legendary with four cheap nodes will carry you further than a Mythic whose last node costs more than an entire wave’s income. Rarity tells you roughly where a unit sits in the drop pool; placement cost, range and the upgrade ladder tell you whether it’s actually worth feeding.

What actually decides whether an ASTD character is worth leveling

Four numbers do almost all the work, and you can read all of them off the in-game unit info panel before you commit anything:

• Placement cost — what you pay to put the unit down. This sets your opening, because you can only place what your early-wave cash allows.
• Range — how many studs the unit covers. Range decides how many legal tiles it has, and therefore how flexible it is when a map’s path doubles back.
• Upgrade count and total upgrade cost — how many nodes the ladder has and what the whole ladder costs from L1 to max.
• Damage gained per upgrade — the stat change on each node. Two units can have identical ladders and very different scaling, and the scaling is what you’re actually paying for.

Role sits on top of all four. Single-target units exist to stop bosses and high-HP enemies; AoE units exist to delete the trash so your single-target unit never has to waste its damage. Support and buff units only earn their slot once you already have something worth buffing.

ASTD rarity tiers and the stat bands behind them

The table below shows the approximate bands each rarity tier tends to sit in. These are tier-level bands, not per-unit values — individual units sit anywhere inside or just outside them, and balance patches move numbers between updates, so treat the unit panel as the source of truth.

Two things jump out of that table. First, total upgrade spend grows far faster than placement cost — a Secret-tier unit costs maybe 3× a Legendary to place but up to 6× to finish. Second, range scales with rarity much more gently than cost does, which is why a cheap long-range unit is often the better early-game buy than a mid-cost unit with a short reach.

Placement cost: the number that decides your opening

Your first 90 seconds on any map are a placement-cost puzzle, not a damage puzzle. Cash at wave one is limited, so the useful question is: how many bodies can I get on the path before the first real wave lands? Three cheap units covering three separate path segments usually beat one expensive unit covering one, because leaks are what actually end runs in the early game.

Rule of thumb: keep at least one unit whose placement cost is under roughly a fifth of your starting cash. That unit is your opener and your filler, and it stays useful even after you’ve stopped upgrading it.

Range: why long reach changes which tiles are legal

Range is the most underrated stat in the game because it’s really a map-interaction stat. On a path that doubles back, a long-range unit placed in the middle of the loop can cover two or even three separate segments at once — meaning it effectively gets two or three times the uptime of a short-range unit for the same placement cost and the same upgrade spend. Short-range units are only efficient when you can place them directly against a corner where the path bends tightly.

Practical threshold: below about 15 studs, a unit needs a genuinely good map to justify its slot. Above 25 studs, you can usually find a legal tile that covers two segments on almost any map.

Upgrade paths: read the ladder before you spend

Here’s the check to run on every unit before you feed it anything:

1. Note the placement cost and every upgrade node’s price. You’re building a total: placement + all nodes = the real cost of the unit. Reason: you never get the stats without paying the whole ladder.
2. Record the damage (or damage-per-second) change at each node. Divide the gain by the node’s cost. Reason: the last two nodes are almost always the worst value per cash, and knowing that stops you from over-committing.
3. Check whether the final node unlocks an ability or passive rather than pure stats. Reason: an ability node can be worth a bad ratio, a pure-stat node rarely is.
4. Compare total ladder cost against the cash you’ll realistically have banked by the wave you need the unit for. Reason: a 20,000-cash ladder is useless if the boss arrives at wave 8 and you’re earning 700 a wave.

A worked example: three cheap placements vs one fully upgraded unit

This is a method illustration with round numbers, not a specific character’s stat sheet — swap in the real values from your own unit panel.

Say a mid-cost unit places for 600, with upgrade nodes at 700, 1,100, 1,800 and 2,600, and damage per hit of 250 / 400 / 600 / 850 / 1,200 at L1 through L5.

• Wide build: three copies at L1 = 3 × 600 = 1,800 cash, dealing 3 × 250 = 750 damage per volley across three tiles.
• Deep build: one copy at L5 = 600 + 700 + 1,100 + 1,800 + 2,600 = 6,800 cash, dealing 1,200 damage per volley on one tile.

Damage per 1,000 cash: the wide build returns about 417, the deep build about 176 — the wide build is roughly 2.4× more efficient. So why would anyone go deep? Because the deep build needs only one legal tile, which matters on maps where the final stretch is a single choke point, and because concentrated damage is what breaks through high-HP or damage-resistant enemies that three weak hits simply don’t scratch.

The break-even is the interesting part. The deep build needs 6,800 banked. At roughly 600–900 cash per wave early on, that’s about 8 to 11 waves of saving with almost nothing spent on defense. If the boss wave lands before wave 10, the deep build isn’t a choice you get to make — it’s a fantasy. That single calculation tells you more about your build order than any tier list row.

Which unit should you level first? A decision matrix

Characters and rarities to skip

• Common and Rare single-target units. Their damage ceiling is too low to matter past the opening waves, and the upgrade cash is better saved toward a Legendary ladder.
• Any unit whose full ladder costs more than roughly ten times your average per-wave income. You’ll never finish it in a real match.
• Duplicate copies of a unit you’ve already maxed. A second copy at L1 is strictly worse than pushing a different unit one node further.
• Short-range units on wide-lane maps. If the legal tile count is one or two, the unit is a liability.
• Pure-stat final nodes with a bad ratio. Stop the ladder one node early and spend the difference elsewhere.

How to level efficiently, step by step

1. Bank a reserve before you spend anything. Keep enough cash to place one full defensive line if a wave goes badly. Reason: one leak usually ends the run, and a reserve is cheaper than a restart.
2. Level the cheapest ladder in your roster first. Reason: cheap ladders finish faster, so the payoff arrives while the units are still relevant.
3. Stop at the second-to-last node if the final node is pure stats with a poor ratio. Reason: that cash buys a whole new placement, which usually adds more total damage.
4. Test on the earliest wave of a map you already clear. Reason: a controlled comparison tells you whether the upgrade actually changed the outcome, and early waves are cheap to replay.
5. Re-check after every balance patch. Reason: per the game’s official patch notes, unit values shift between updates, and a tier list is a snapshot of one version, not a permanent ranking.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which ASTD character should I level first?

Level the unit with the cheapest complete upgrade ladder that still fills a role you’re missing — usually a mid-cost AoE unit if you have no wave clear, or a premium single-target unit if you keep dying to bosses. Cheap ladders pay back in the first ten waves, which is when a new account is most fragile. Rarity is a tiebreaker, not the deciding factor.

Is a higher rarity always better in ASTD?

No. Higher rarity generally means higher damage ceiling, but it also means a longer and more expensive ladder and a bigger placement cost. A Legendary you can actually finish will outperform a Mythic you can only place at level one in most real matches. Compare total ladder cost, not the rarity label.

Should I place more copies of a unit or upgrade one copy?

Early on, more copies almost always wins, because placement is cheap relative to the top upgrade nodes and extra copies cover extra path segments. Concentrated upgrades win when the map funnels everything through one tile, or when a boss has enough HP or damage resistance that low-level hits don’t register at all.

How much range does a unit need to be worth placing?

As a working threshold, under about 15 studs a unit needs a corner tile to be efficient, while over roughly 25 studs you can usually find a tile covering two path segments on most maps. Range effectively multiplies a unit’s uptime, so it’s often worth more than a modest damage difference.

Are limited or exclusive units worth chasing?

Only if you can also afford their ladder. Exclusive-tier units often have the best raw stats in the game, but their total upgrade spend can be several times a Legendary’s, so on a fresh account the gems are usually better spent elsewhere. If you already have a finished core team, a limited unit is a reasonable upgrade to the ceiling.

How often does the ASTD tier list change?

Every balance patch can move units between tiers, and the game updates regularly, so treat any tier list as a snapshot of one version. The stable part is the method: placement cost, range, ladder length and damage-per-cash. Those four numbers stay the right way to judge a unit even after the rankings shift.