I have to be honest, the Decoy is by far my least favourite Trap ever introduced in any of the Orcs Must Die series and I personally never use them unless there is a game mode I am playing that forces me to use them.
Even if the Decoy is recommended, I often avoid using them, though admittedly in OMD3 there are weekly challenges that will require you to get a hand of them, assumingely because of their extremely low usage.
By far I have to say, that the Decoy is one of the only Traps that “doesn’t get much better” even when players learn to utilize it in the most ideal situations. This is a bit hard to stomach since I don’t like speaking so lowly of a Trap, but… there is really no point to this Trap in my experience.
I would love to believe that every Trap has it’s use, even if it doesn’t deal the most damage or comes at a bit of a damage decrease when steering away from the “Meta” but I still haven’t found myself using this Trap for anything and really think that it’s a waste of space on your roster.
As I write guides, here is my plea to get you to keep reading about the Decoy so you can make a more informed decision whether or not you choose to put it on any of your load outs.
HOW TO UNLOCK THE DECOY
Luckily for players, the Decoy is an unlock that players will receive without spending Skulls.
The Decoy unlocks after players complete the Master’s Courtyard and can choose to immediately ignore it, as it is not going to be useful in the early game or can choose to try to make it part of their roster if they simply like the mechanics of it.
DECOY STATS
The Decoy is a relatively expensive Trap, coming up to 700 Coins per decoy. The reason I find this expensive is due to the fact that the Decoy is a limited time usage so players will have to regularly replace them if they hope to always have Decoys on the field.
The main use of the Decoy is to attract a maximum of 3 enemies at a time in hopes of distracting them so players have some extra time to attack enemies using their own weapons or use Traps that are placed on the field.
The Decoy begins with 125 health and once it is destroyed it will deal 200 Physical Damage.
The only benefit of the Decoy is the fact that it only fills up a 1×1 square when placed, considered to be a “half” standard square, making it easy to spam these everywhere.
Admittedly on certain game modes that require players to use an already successful roster, Decoys become a main source of damage, but outside of these they are quite a bit problematic as there are some tougher Mobs that will simply ignore them.
It should be noted that Decoys do not deal any damage unless they are destroyed, so even if you’re distracting 3 enemies, you’re not really doing much unless you are able to overwhelm these enemies with external damage.
Realistically other Traps are more helpful for slowing enemies or applying crowd control such as the Tar Trap, Confusion Flower, Deep Freeze or even Traps that can be upgraded to inflict Crowd Control like the Dart Spitter.
DECOY UPGRADES
The Decoy Upgrades come in two different batches being the “Level Upgrades” and the “Unique Upgrades.”
Level upgrades are accessible immediately while Unique Upgrades require players to deal 2,000 damage in order to unlock this tier of upgrades.
LEVEL UPGRADES
Level Upgrades can feel pretty useless for players are they will increase the health of a Decoy which can feel like a bit of a shot in the foot for players.
The reality is that Level Upgrades are good for buying time if players are able to shred enemies using their weapons, but it does limit the amount of times a Decoy can assist in damage.
Essentially, when players are up against tougher mobs, players risk a Decoy that is not upgraded being destroyed too quickly, only damaging/luring a single mob, but this will deal the 200 Physical Damage to the lured in mobs.
In my experience as much as levelling up a Decoy reduces the amount of damage a Decoy can output (simply due to the fact that it is not destroyed as fast), it’s still a good upgrade to have if you’re going to use the Decoy outside of weekly challenges.
The following are the upgrades players will acquire when they upgrade the Decoy.
The first upgrade requires 4 Skulls and will increase the health of the Decoy to 150.
The second upgrade requires 6 Skulls and will increase the health of the Decoy to 175.
The first upgrade requires 8 Skulls and will increase the health of the Decoy to 225.
I wouldn’t rush these upgrades if you are simply planning on using this Trap for situational challenges, especially because they are not going to be very useful otherwise, though with the Skull refund implemented in OMD3 there is really no downfall to investing in them when you’re playing these maps and refunding yourself afterwards. Just make sure you remember to refund them so you have Skulls to spend on better Traps.
UNIQUE UPGRADES
As mentioned, if players are hoping to access the Unique Upgrades of the Decoy they will have to deal 2,000 damage using Decoys in order to unlock.
The Unique Upgrades for the Decoy are really unnecessary, unless players are planning on using the Decoy or forced to use the Decoy during specific types of maps, such as weekly challenges.
I’ll be honest, the Decoy Unique Upgrades aren’t the most useful in most situations.
The first Unique Upgrade costs 5 Skulls and will increase the Explosion Radius and Damage of the Decoy so that it affects 2.5 squares instead of 2 squares. I personally don’t care for this.
The better upgrade, being the second, also costs 5 Skulls and will bleed enemies that attack the Decoy by 8 physical damage per second.
Again, neither of these upgrades are particularly good, so I strongly recommend not even focusing on them.
IS THE DECOY GOOD?
If you haven’t caught it by now… I truly despise the Decoy.
Not only does it not affect many enemies at once, the Decoy is merely an expensive Trap that players must keep replacing every time it explodes.
I wish that there was a saving grace for the Decoy, like players would be able to allow the Decoy to regenerate health or be able to take on more Mobs, but the reality is that the Decoy doesn’t get much better and is often recommended to avoid in most situations, unless players are forced to use it.
Realistically, there was a weekly challenge that involved the Decoy and I refused to place it, but after “changing my mind” and using it, it ended up being quite powerful, though admittedly I was broke and couldn’t have done it if I was placing better Traps.
In situations like this, yes it would be a good idea to upgrade the Decoy, but make sure you refund those Skulls after because it’s going to cost you in the long run.
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