What a Paragon Is
A Paragon is a special upgrade for a tower family that is built from its three Tier 5 upgrade paths. You need the Paragon unlocked with tower XP, enough cash for the Paragon upgrade, and the required Tier 5 towers placed before the upgrade can be created.
The three Tier 5 towers used to unlock the Paragon are required inputs. They are not treated as “extra Tier 5 towers” for the v39.0+ extra Tier 5 power category.
What Degree Measures
Paragon Degree is the visible result of internal Paragon Power. The game converts capped inputs into power, caps effective total power at 200,000, then chooses the highest degree threshold reached.
Degree 1 starts at 0 effective power. Degree 100 requires 200,000 effective power. Intermediate degrees use the community-documented degree threshold formula.
Current v39.0+ Power Sources
Extra Tier 5 towers add 6,000 power each after the first three required Tier 5 towers, capped at 50,000 power. Non-T5 upgrade tiers add 100 power each, capped at 10,000 power.
Placed tower cash and manual cash slider investment share a 60,000 power cap. Pops and bonus income share a 90,000 power cap. Geraldo Paragon Power Totems add 2,000 power each and are limited only by the final 200,000 effective power cap.
Planning Priorities
For high-degree planning, avoid adding resources to a category that is already capped. Once a category is capped, only other uncapped categories or Power Totems can increase the effective total.
Use the calculator pages when you need exact resource-to-power conversions, and use this guide as the rules reference for deciding which input is still worth improving.