Tower Hunter: Erza’s Trial – Chip System Guide

Here’s some things I found while playing, which could be useful to know before starting a naw game on Tower Hunter – Erza’s Trial. Expect some clarification about how Chips work, and their related upgrades.

The Chip System

All credit goes to Skye Wilson!

How It Works

Erza can hold Chips, in addition to her equipment, limited by points. She starts at 100, but the limit can be raised up to nine times with the upgrade section (we’ll come back to it).

You’ll find while playing up to three (four) kinds of Chips, which are Red, Blue, and Green (Purple also exists, but it is a special case). Each has their features:

• Red Chips are stackable, and can be upgraded.
• Blue Chips are only held in singletons, and can be upgraded.
• Green Chips offers unique bonuses, are only held in singletons, and cannot be upgraded.
• The only Purple Chip of its kind gives attack points, based on the number of enemies killed.

How to Upgrade Your Chip Capacity Properly

If you already checked, there’s two ways to upgrade it, Power Consumption and (sic) Energy Recycled.

There is a thing to know about the latter: it only works for actually held Chips, will not apply for the next ones you’ll take later, and is partially lost if you remove one of the affected Chips at any point.

Due to that, the only good thing to do is max out, or at least, put at high level (6 or more) the first one (and wait until you cannot add anymore Chips) before putting a single point to the second, so you can optimize your Chip capacity, once again, and repeat the process until you max out that upgrade.

Now let’s get to the main point: the Chips itselves.

Chips List

Red Chips

Enhanced Physique

• Does: Health increase, by points.
• Usefulness: Limited at early stages, becomes useless when you’ll get enough Magic Cores (a special item which upgrades your health, and another stat. You’ll find plenty of these while playing).

Enhanced Bones

• Does: Health increase, by percentage.
• Usefulness: Maybe. Need some testing for confirmation.

Warrior’s Strength

• Does: Attack increase, by points.
• Usefulness: Limited at early stages. Useless when you get Soul Cage and/or enough Magic Cores with Attack bonus.

Magical Instrument

• Does: Special Attack increase, by points.
• Usefulness: Absolutely not. Special attacks are not reliable as is.

Shield of Iron

• Does: Defense increase, by points.
• Usefulness: Limited at early stages. Useless when you get enough Magic Cores with Defense bonus.

Shield of Conviction

• Does: Defense increase, by percentage.
• Usefulness: Maybe. Need some testing for confirmation.

Strength of Knowing

• Does: Critical Strike chance.
• Usefulness: Get 6 of these ASAP. Fully upgraded, it gives 15% Critical chance per Chip, enough to reach 100% with most of the late game weapons.

Critical Damage

• Does: Self explanative.
• Usefulness: At later stages, it will be your best option for damage boost (15% damage per Chip when fully upgraded). Take them when you reached (or going to reach) full Critical Chance.

Shield Piercing Projectile

• Does: Armor Penetration, by percentage.
• Usefulness: Same as Strength of Knowing. Get 6-7 of these when you can (15% Armor Pen per Chip when fully upgraded). Prove its usefulness at higher difficulties.

Super Insecticide / Super Oxidant / Hunter’s Heart

• Does: Attack bonus when hitting specific enemies, by points.
• Usefulness: Not at all, even if it’s slightly better than Warrior’s Strength.

Total Faith

• Does: Attack bonus when your HP is full, by points.
• Usefulness: The bonus it gives is not interesting enough. Enough said.

Blue Chips

Steal Health

• Does: 50% chance to heal by a percentage (2-4%) of your damage.
• Usefulness: Helps a lot, and makes you less dependant of heal charges. Not essential however.

Poison Crystals

• Does: Adds poison damage to your attacks, by points.
• Usefulness: The damage, even maxed, are too low to stay useful a higher difficulties.

Accelerator

• Does: Improves run speed.
• Usefulness: Depends about how important is mobility for you. If unsure, take it and max it out, the ~33% speed bonus will shorten your play time, at least.

Weapon Master

• Does: Bonus Attack with weapons, by points.
• Usefulness: Refer to Total Faith.

Unpanishad Spirit

• Does: Unclear, did not see any noticeable change
• Usefulness: –

Berserker’s Heart / Unparalleled Fury

• Does: Bonus Attack When fighting / not fighting the boss, by points.
• Usefulness: Refer to Total Faith.

Weapon-specific related Chips

• Does: Bonus Attack if the equipped weapon matches, by points.
• Usefulness: Refer to Total Faith.

Tread Lightly

• Does: Reduces enemy detection radius, by percentage.
• Usefulness: Well, this is not your average Tactical Espionage Action game, so do not pay attention to this Chip.

Ammunition Loading

• Does: Cooldown reduction for special attacks, by percentage.
• Usefulness: With this, you’ll spam more often those special attacks, not for damage, but for the stagger it gives on most enemies.

Move Body with Soul

• Does: Energy regeneration, by percentage.
• Usefulness: this Chip allows you to spam more often your skills when maxed out.

Green Chips

Crystal Refining

• Does: All crystal drops gives +1 Crystal.
• Usefulness: Keep it, unless you’ve maxed anything possible.

Revenge Mark

• Does: Any enemy who hits you is marked. You have 100% Critical Chance on marked units.
• Usefulness: It does not need many chip capacity, so unless you have (near) 100% Critical Chance, keep it.

Ossified Virus

• Does: 50% chance to slow the enemy on hit. Can be stacked up to three times.
• Usefulness: It applies to most bosses too, so take it when you can.

Automatically Inject

• Does: Uses automatically one heal charge when your HP goes below 20%.
• Usefulness: Adds some necessary comfort, and makes you sure that you’ll use all charges before being killed (if it happens).

Sensitive Physique

• Does: Healing is 20% more powerful.
• Usefulness: Like Automatically Inject. A must have.

Angel Feathers

• Does: Grants a revive, regaining 70% of your maximum HP when killed.
• Usefulness: You’ll get some of these when going higher in the tower. It’ll be a waste to let them on the ground.

Unyielding Will

• Does: Your Attack is boosted by a percentage, proportional to your missing health.
• Usefulness: The less health you have, the harder you hit. Take it when you can.

Special Case: Soul Cage, The Purple Chip

As said before, Soul Cage gives bonus attack, depending of the total number of kills you did, regardless of where it comes (previous runs, challenge, or your actual run).

About what it gives, well, I have a problem to resolve: on my first run, it gave to me +1 attack par kill, and actually, +1 for every 100 kills (which seems more balanced, to be honest).

The bonus caps at 999, is retroactive, and must be kept from the moment you find it.