Ballista

"The bane of flying creatures, the ballista destroys all in the air with a fiery blast. "

Ballistas are slow but strong anti air units.

Description
Ballistas are powerful units that attack only air units. With the Black Powder Upgrade, bought in the Advanced Workshop, they can destroy large groups of air units with splash damage, such as massed dragons.

Abilities
None

Upgrades
Ballista Black Powder

Grants Ballistas an area-of-effect attack that damages other air units, both friend and enemy, within 1.00 radius of the target.

Mech Attack Upgrade

Increases the attack damage of your Mechanical units.

(Grants Ballistas +3 damage per upgrade, up to +15)

Mech Upgrade

Increases the armor of your Mechanical units.

(Grants Ballistas +1 armor per upgrade, up to +5)

Mech Upgrade

Increases the movement speed of your Mechanical units.

(Grants Ballistas +0.15 speed per upgrade, up to +0.75)

Mech Upgrade

Increases the range of your ranged Mechanical units. Has no influence on melee units.

(Grants Ballistas +1 range per upgrade, up to +5)

Usage
Ballistas are niche units used exclusively to kill air units such as Dragons and Airships. In this role they are very effective due to their high range - higher than anything except Catapults - high burst damage, and passable damage per second. Ballistas become even more dangerous once they have the Black Powder upgrade to deal area of effect damage.

In the early game, Ballistas can be used to deny drop harass from enemy Airhips. While slower than Archers, they are able to defend a much larger area due to their enhanced range, and deal more damage for their cost and supply. They also have surprisingly high armor - the second highest in the game - which makes them resistant to low-tier units. In the lategame, however, they become more vulnerable to drops of powerful units like Werewolves or upgraded Soldiers which cannot be attacked and can kill the Ballista before it escapes.

However, Ballistas are still useful in the lategame for countering Dragon harass. Because Dragons tend to clump up when used to attack Workers, a single Ballista with Black Powder can deal enormous damage to an incoming force at significantly longer range than the Dragons have. The Ballista also draws the Dragons' fire, and its high armor again helps to protect it. However, Dragons' speed, health regeneration, and flight lets them abuse cliffs and terrain to avoid death with good micro.

In addition, it is fairly rare to research Mech upgrades unless the enemy has committed heavily to air, so lategame Dragons become more powerful as they benefit from Beast upgrades while the Ballistas remain at base stats.

Like Catapults, Ballistas can be repaired by Workers, which can enormously increase their durability. A Worker can repair a Ballista from 1 health back to 150 in under 20 seconds for 19 Gold; furthermore, multiple Workers may repair a Ballista at the same time.