I have that this, like the old accelerator versus ranger discussion may bring a lot of people on either sides of the argument into a full out war, and thus i will have to play the role of the middle and be forced to not choose a side. footnotes of this argument will correspond to a number in brackets, such as something like this: [0]. this is the first and last time i will interact with this topic, unless something big pops up and changes the way the towers work. to save time, i will be shortening War Machine Sentry to WMS
*DISCLAIMER: THIS POST IS VERY LONG, AND DO TO THE BEHAVIOR OF WIKI USERS, IN WHICH MOST DO NOT READ, THIS IS A WARNING THAT THIS POST IS LONG. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED*
This post covers the main factors of what makes a tower good. I will divide them into these categories: Damage Output & DPS, Cost & Cost Efficiency, Range, Type Detection.
Damage Output & DPS
The Damage Output of Accelerator estimates to somewhere from 18 to 25 per tick. meanwhile, Engineer deals 40 damage per shot. which is better than the accelerator's damage. However, most can argue that damage per shot/tick is rather invalid, and the true damage is calculated through DPS. and thus, using the power of the wikia, we know that the accelerator does anywhere from 323 to 232 DPS. meanwhile Engineer deals a mere 49.5 DPS. Fairly low, innit?
Despite that, thats the damage of the engineer ALONE. the main gimmick of the engineer is its ability to place and spawn sentries. At level 6, the engineer spawns WMS, four of them.[1] each WMS independently does the total DPS of 101.25. adding that to the engineer deals the total damage of 150.75, which still isnt enough to compare to accelerator. However, if we add the damage of the other three WMS we can get a total DPS of a whopping 454.5. which, at its lowest DPS almost double that of Accelerator. [2]
Cost Efficiency & Total Cost
The total cost of a tower is calculated by adding up the prices for all of its levels. i will be calculating cost efficiency in the most simplest and probably ineffective way: DPS/Cost >/</= DPS/Cost[3] when put into my poor equation, the towers are [4]323/43000 (Accelerator) to the 454.5/54,100 (Engineer+WMS). in which situation, for only 125~ DPS more, id say accelerator would be more cost efficient. however, if we use the accelerator's lowest damage output(Resulting in 232/43000) it would be about half of the DPS of the engineer. in which case, then accelerator would need to have two to approximately match up to a singular engineer, which would cost 83000 compared to the 54,100. making it's engineer more cost efficient. because accelerator's damage is always changing, its hard to accurately calculate it with my pathetic inequality equation.
Range
The range of the Engineer is a plain 20, and so is the range of the accelerator. however, the range of its Sentries can very, as they can be placed in many directions, and have different ranges. it can be seen as an extent of the range of the Engineer's range or its own range independently, you choose. however its range does outnumber the range of the accelerator by 2. thus puts engineer and sentry at a higher range.[5]
Type Detection
The Engineer has the upperhand at, with the WMS' explosions, control Hidden, Lead, and Flying Detection, as long as they are seen in different enemies[6]. On the other hand, Accelerator can damage lead and hidden enemies.
Final Results
Its up to you to decide which side your on, im not here to convince anybody (I tried not to, at least), but rather to state as much information i can about the topic. Don't take my full word for it, i have been proven wrong many times before, for reasons stupid or smart. Ive been here for like- two hours. i hope you found this helpful, but i really need to go. i need to get on Splatoon Salmon Run and grind out a ton of stuff. Night.
Foot Notes
1: its noted that each WMS costs the high number of 100 scraps, as well as lasts for 60 seconds. the WMS also has a shield starting at level 5.
2: Explosive rocket damage takes up 7.5 of the total damage of the war machine, but it should be noted this only counts for the true damage of an explosion, and doesnt take into account the blast radius damage that is dealt to other enemies in range.
3: if anybody knows the actual equation please tell me so i can save it for later. its also to note that this isnt very accurate.
4: used the maximum DPS for this calculation. for the next one, i used minimum DPS.
5: the engineer placing the sentry changes whether it has more or less range on the engineer's damage area.
6: enemies such as Lead Balloon cannot be damaged by this party,
