Megadramon

I've upgraded the wrong tower in AP quite a bit and it has completely ruined my games. xD It'd be nice to be able to catch yourself in the act and cancel a tower upgrade!

there is no competition in different random. players with a different random set of elements will naturally have an upper hand over other players which is quite unfair if you're trying to compete against each other. if you're not rushing each other and trying to play your own game separately, then different random would be viable, but you might as well play single player. to avoid a complex starting menu, maybe we can have an advanced menu? it'd still be nice to play with friends while trying to beat a personal record.

As I'm playing right now, actually, it's not auto-casting on my towers... well tower is working. however, though!

Just played a few games of this on Dota2 and the experience is just as it was in previous versions of the game. Still a lot to get used to such as not being able to upgrade basic towers, hot keys; etc... Scoreboard unfortunately wasn't working, and there's a huge lag issue in 8 player games. It's also weird how basic towers in AP don't give 100% refund value, but i'm assuming it's intended now? Also the income timer should have a proper timer instead of a bar for visuals. Overall, though, great map! Might be playing this map over Dota for a while hahaha

Well what I mean with difficulty is that strategies on easier difficulties will most likely not work on harder difficulties due to creeps and fruits being significantly stronger. There's a strategy involving the Immortal Tower where you just mass those for late game or something like that and you'll have a plethora of lives... I remember someone having like over 200 lives doing that strategy. If you try that strategy on VH, you're bound to lose as it won't work. Things work differently on different difficulty is what I'm trying to say. Your complaint with Comet and Immortal Towers may not be an issue with other difficulties. As for tower comparisons, as in how towers are compared to others on all difficulties. Every tower is different, and every tower deals it's damage differently. Some towers are bound to out preform others due to how versatile they are. The hard part about this game is how to use the most of your towers. Some towers are made easy to use, and some were made hard to use, but still effective if used properly. If a tower is still crappy no matter how you use it, then it most likely needs tweaking. The game is still in beta, so if you have a complaint about towers being too weak, then it can be considered a valid input. As for Comet Towers being powerful, I think they were meant to be powerful with relative ease. As for why would you pick Ephemeral over Comet when you have access to both? Who knows... maybe the creeps you were killing had traits that helped them resist the way Comet towers dealt damage such as perhaps Illusions, or Shields. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that Comet Tower for example is a main damage dealer type tower. Some towers do high damage to specific types of creeps, while Comet is able to do high damage to a broader range of creeps. Why make towers that are only good against specific waves while a tower like Comet is good against a wider range of creeps? Maybe for diversity, dynamics, difficulty, experimental replay value. I'm sure every tower has it's use, and if it's completely useless, then it needs to get buffed or changed. Comet tower's role was most likely to provide a main sorrce of damage while you may have different types of towers to handle with different types of creeps.

When talking about balancing, it's important to entail what difficulty the balance issue is on. Though I agree Comet Towers are pretty powerful, it's not necessarily the I win tower on Very Hard (I actually forget if this is the case, I haven't played in a while). As for Immortal Towers, I personally have never used this tower on Very Hard. I don't think the low damage output is worth the extra lives.

Oh the map is only uploaded on selected servers... I don't know the official list atm, but the servers I know that have the map are NA, and Europe. If I can get a confirmation on which servers have this map, I can update the guide. If you can't seem to find the map, it probably means the map wasn't uploaded in your region. Sorry for not mentioning this in the guide. EDIT: Alright, thanks for reporting this, I've updated the guide to reflect this. Also, I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

It'd be nice if someone can obs and record the game via fraps or something and upload it onto the forums. If I have enough disk space I'd be able to do it.... how much do you think a 60min game would take up with fraps. If I remember how, I'm able to significantly reduce the size without quality loss. I think I have the proper codec to do it now. Anyways, I'll participate. SCII info is in my signature. Also a question about matches... Say both players make it to the fruit level, is it whoever is the last survivor, or whoever gets the most fruit points wins?

I made a post about this problem a while ago https://forums.eletd.com/The-Problem-with-S...Mode-t2658.html

Poison is 16 range o.o Also I think Poison is fine. Are you sure you're talking about DW Poison Tower?

Seeing as you got dark, wouldn't you be able to handle the boss?

Is this the pure elemental rush build with resell?

Characteristics of the Elemental Towers > > > > > i. Preface: Not many people know the technical differences between each elemental tower, and many don't use them properly. Ignoring resell, unlike ray and grenade towers, elemental towers are not 100% resell value on all pick, making elemental towers harder to utilize, and any wrong towers will cost you. On all random however, reselling is not a problem. Knowing the key characteristics and mechanics of each elemental tower can and will help you improve your game, allowing you to clear out waves more effectively and efficiently; at the same time, saving you minerals. Though this game revolves around combining elements to make dual or triple towers, knowing elemental tower mechanics is still very useful, and can help you in tight situations. Please look forward to the rest of the guide! Contents: i. Preface 1. Introduction 2. Types of Towers 3. Splash (AOE) vs Single Targeting Splash (AOE) Single Targeting Results 4. Elements Light Element Dark Element Water Element Fire Element Nature Element Earth Element 5. Final Words 1. Introduction: Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another guide about towers! Unlike my last guide, this guide will focus more so on the characteristics of the Elemental Towers in their pure form. If you haven't already seen my first guide about Ray and Grenade towers, please check it out!! My goal of this guide is to hopefully educate you all, and increase your understandings about the mechanics and characteristics of towers. Throughout this guide I'll be sharing with you the hidden potential of each pure elemental tower so you can better utilize them when playing. I've noticed a lot of people using the pure elemental towers improperly, so hopefully by the end of this guide, you'll all learn a thing or two about how to use them effectively and efficiently. 2. Types of Elemental Towers: In Elemental Tower Defense, there are 6 types of elemental towers: Light, Dark, Water, Fire, Nature, and Earth. Each element has it's obvious strengths and weaknesses, but they also have their technical strengths and weaknesses which many people do not realize. Here is a list of the obvious strengths and weakness of each element: Light: Strength: Dark Weakness: Earth Dark: Strength: Water Weakness: Light Water: Strength: Fire Weakness: Dark Fire: Strength: Nature Weakness: Water Nature: Strength: Earth Weakness: Fire Earth: Strength: Light Weakness: Nature Just like in Pokemon, elements deal 2x normal damage against elements they're good against or deal 0.5x damage against elements they're weak against. It's very important to know the obvious strengths and weaknesses of towers. Though there are 6 different elements, if you want to find out their technical strengths and weaknesses, it's best to divide them into two groups. Splash towers and Single Target towers. Fire, Water, and Earth are the splash towers, and Light, Darkness and Nature are the single target towers. If you've read my guide on Ray and Grenade towers, you'll know that there is indeed a technical difference between the two, and that they are important, along with the range. One of the key technical difference between the two is the way they output damage. In order to continue on with this, we'll move along to the next topic. 3. Splash (AOE) vs Single Targeting: Splash and Single Targeting are important mechanics that you must learn in order to become successful. It's important to know them to understand the true damage output you inflict on an entire creep wave. Splash (AOE): Splashing towers are able to output damage through splash, and single towers can't. The trade-off for splash is that it usually always gets a weaker attack compared to a single target tower. When a Splash tower hits a target, it deals damage to the target it hits, and depending on the range of it's splash, it will damage those around the initial target as well. So even though a splash tower would deal 10 damage to a unit for example, depending on the splash radius, or how many creeps are juxtaposed on top of each other, in reality, you are dealing more than 10 damage to the entire creep wave; not just the creep itself. Rather than thinking about damaging a creep, it's important to think in terms of damaging the creep wave. In Element TD, it's not about how much damage you can inflict to a single unit, it's actually about how much damage you can inflict on an entire creep wave. When you are defending in a TD, ask yourself how much damage you're inflicting to this creep wave rather than how much damage does this tower do to a single target. Thinking about the damage output towards a creep wave rather than on a single unit will change the way you think about the game in a positive way. Single Targeting: Now that you know a little more about AOE, and proper thought process, you may be wondering why you should make single target towers now. Well Element TD is well aware of the enormous advantage splash towers have over single target which is why there are different types of creep waves. The best wave single target towers are good against are bosses. Since a boss is just a single unit, when a splash tower hits a boss, it only deals damage to that one unit. There are no other units in which splash can hit, eliminating any potential damage a splash tower can do. Single target towers have a significantly higher attack than splash towers, so they will be much more effective. The advantage single target towers have over splash are their stats. Statistically they are very powerful towers. Take Pure Light for example. Though they are powerful, it lacks one major characteristic to complete the package, and that's splash. No matter what, the maximum potential a single target tower can inflict towards a creep wave is the amount of damage it inflicts towards a single unit, whereas splash towers damage output is reliant of how many creeps are inside it's AOE radius which can lead to a much higher damage output a single target tower can hope to inflict. Results: So I've talked about how it's important to think in the sense of trying to inflict damage towards an entire creep wave rather than a single unit. Inflicting the most damage towards the entire creep wave is key to any defense. Reading about splash and single target towers, you should know that splash towers are potentially much more effective in outputting the most damage towards a creep wave. Single target towers' potential towards a creep wave is the maximum damage it inflicts towards a single unit; nothing more. The problem with this is, although single target towers have high attack output, occasionally they will lose damage output by attacking creeps with lower health than it's damage, significantly reducing the damage output the single target tower is doing towards the entire creep wave. Take Pure Dark for example, this tower deals 18750 damage to a single unit. That means 18750 is the maximum amount of damage it can inflict to a creep wave. If a creep has say 20000HP, and it gets hit by it, not only did you inflict 18750 damage to the creep, you inflict 18750 to the creep wave. What happens if you attack a creep with 1000HP? Then you obviously kill it which is a good thing, right? No, that's over kill. Since the creep only had 1000HP and Pure Darkness does 18750 damage, you only did 1000 damage to the entire creep wave in that one shot when the potential of the tower is 18750 damage. Because of this overkill, single target towers lose damage output towards creep wave which is a bad thing. Splash towers don't suffer too much from overkill. Even if a splash tower over kills a unit, it still inflicts damage to units around it, so wasted shots aren't as grave. Now that you know a little more about the significance of splash and single targeting, we'll move on to the characteristics of each element. 4. Elements The Light Element: Light Tower: Type: Light Cost: 50 Damage: 4 Speed: 0.66 Range: 22 AOE: - Amplified Light Tower: Type: Light Cost: 175 Damage: 20 Speed: 0.66 Range: 22 AOE: - Focused Light Tower: Type: Light Cost: 625 Damage: 100 Speed: 0.66 Range: 22 AOE: - Refined Light Tower: Type: Light Cost: 2125 Damage: 500 Speed: 0.66 Range: 22 AOE: - Pure Light Tower: Type: Light Cost: 11225 Damage: 7500 Speed: 0.66 Range: 22 AOE: - To many, it seems like the Light Element is the strongest element. Why shouldn't it be? It has good attack speed, high damage, and very long range. It's the perfect tower! Though that may all be true, it's missing splash damage, which as you should know by now, is very important. Key Characteristics: Pros -Good damage -Extremely long range -Good attack speed -Good against Darkness -Single Target Cons -Vulnerable to misfire -Vulnerable to overkill -Single Target -Weak against Earth Explanation: All the pros are pretty much self explanatory, the only interesting characteristic you may not know about this tower is that it has a slow projectile. I say this tower has a slow projectile because the time it takes for the projectile to connect with the creep takes a while, especially at a longer range. By the time the projectile connects with the creep, there's a chance the creep may already be dead, resulting in a misfire which can be common if you have your light towers far away from the action. When a misfire occurs, you lose damage output towards the wave. You inflict 0 damage in that one shot which is huge damage loss; at least with a misfire, you deal some damage. Another disadvantage with a slow projectile is that mechanical creeps may get lucky enough to go invulnerable before the projectile connects, another example of a misfire. Light towers are also vulnerable to overkills. The Dark Element: Dark Tower: Type: Dark Cost: 50 Damage: 10 Speed: 1.5 Range: 16 AOE: - Amplified Dark Tower: Type: Dark Cost: 175 Damage: 50 Speed: 1.5 Range: 16 AOE: - Focused Dark Tower: Type: Dark Cost: 625 Damage: 250 Speed: 1.5 Range: 16 AOE: - Refine Dark Tower: Type: Dark Cost: 2125 Damage: 1250 Speed: 1.5 Range: 16 AOE: - Pure Dark Tower: Type: Dark Cost: 11225 Damage: 18750 Speed: 1.5 Range: 16 AOE: - Though it's a very cool element, some think of it as the inferior light due to it's wannabe range, and horrid attack speed. Hopefully I can shed some light onto this element as it's pretty dark in here. Key Characteristics: Pros: -High damage -Good range -Good against Water -Single Target Cons: -Vulnerable to overkill -Vulnerable to misfire -Slow attack -No splash -Weak against Light Explanation: Though it's very powerful, it's very sluggish, slow and suffers from some of the same problems light has but with lower range. The lower range isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd say it now has a much lesser chance to misfire, and is more effective against units around it's range. Though because of it's high attack, it can suffer more from over-kill, with a long recovery time in-between shots. The Water Element: Water Tower: Type: Water Cost: 50 Damage: 1 Speed: 0.31 Range: 12 AOE: 1.5/3 Amplified Water Tower: Type: Water Cost: 175 Damage: 5 Speed: 0.31 Range: 12 AOE: 1.5/3 Focused Water Tower: Type: Water Cost: 625 Damage: 25 Speed: 0.31 Range: 12 AOE: - Refined Water Tower: Type: Water Cost: 2125 Damage: 125 Speed: 0.31 Range: 12 AOE: 1.5/3 Pure Water Tower: Type: Water Cost: 11225 Damage: 1875 Speed: 0.31 Range: 12 AOE: 1.5/3 It may seem like the inferior version of the Fire element, but truth be told, they have different purposes! The only difference between the two are the AOE and range! Key Characteristics: Pros: -High attack speed -High DPS -Decent range -AOE -Good against Fire Cons: -Low damage -Small AOE -Bad against Darkness Explanation: Though the damage is pretty weak, it makes up for it's extremely fast attack and AOE resulting in a pretty high DPS towards the wave. I listed it's AOE as it's pro and con because even though it has AOE, there are different levels of AOE, and the Water's AOE is the lowest kind. That being said, AOE still means it has potential, its just that it means it's potential is a bit harder to achieve due to the low AOE radius, but still possible with enough slow. Another good thing about the Water tower is that is has pretty decent range, allowing it to fight creeps weak against single target characteristics, such as speed, mechanical, and bosses, something Fire isn't able to do well. If you have enough slow throughout your defense, I can see it outshining Fire. The Fire Element: Fire Tower: Type: Fire Cost: 50 Damage: 1 Speed: 0.31 Range: 8 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Amplified Fire Tower: Type: Fire Cost: 175 Damage: 5 Speed: 0.31 Range: 8 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Focused Fire Tower: Type: Fire Cost: 625 Damage: 25 Speed: 0.31 Range: 8 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Refined Fire Tower: Type: Fire Cost: 2125 Damage: 125 Speed: 0.31 Range: 8 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Pure Fire Tower: Type: Fire Cost: 11225 Damage: 1875 Speed: 0.31 Range: 8 AOE: 2.25/4.5 This tower is easily one of the favorite towers in terms of strength and results. The truth behind the matter is, this tower is really good against creep waves en mass, and that's what the majority of the game is all about, killing creeps en mass. The only problem is that the game tries to find ways to screw people over who rely too heavily on splash towers, and thus throws in bosses, and creeps that try to nullify splash damage. Key Characteristics: Pros: -High attack speed -High DPS -Good AOE -Good against Nature Cons: -Low damage -Bad against Water -Severe weakness to anti-splash stages Explanation: There's not much to this tower. All you need to know is that it's good against most creep waves, and bad against bosses, speed, and mechanical. Fire is a very simple yet effective tower. If you're wondering why they're bad against those particular creep waves however, its simply because of Fire's poor range. Fire is basically a better version of the Grenade tower. Just like the Grenade tower, they're only good against units en mass. Bosses, speed, and mechanical can all find ways to escape the poor range of the tower. The Nature Element: Nature Tower: Type: Nature Cost: 50 Damage: 5 Speed: 0.66 Range: 12 AOE: - Amplified Nature Tower: Type: Nature Cost: 175 Damage: 25 Speed: 0.66 Range: 12 AOE: - Focused Nature Tower: Type: Nature Cost: 625 Damage: 125 Speed: 0.66 Range: 12 AOE: - Refined Nature Tower: Type: Nature Cost: 2125 Damage: 625 Speed: 0.66 Range: 12 AOE: - Pure Nature Tower: Type: Nature Cost: 11225 Damage: 9375 Speed: 0.66 Range: 12 AOE: - I feel as that the Nature Element is one of the underdog Elements out there along with Earth. I don't hear many people brag about how good it is like the other elements. Once you get to know this Element better, it'll start to grow on you. The great thing about Nature is that it serves as a mediator between Dark and Light, both being single target and all. If you were to compare Nature to something, it'd probably be to a Ray Tower. They're both pretty identical in terms of characteristics. Key Characteristics: Pros: -Good damage -Decent range -Decent attack speed -Single target -Good against Earth Cons: -Vulnerable to overkill -Vulnerable to misfire -No splash -Good against Earth Explanation: Like I said before, this tower is essentially the same as the Ray Tower, except with more potential due to it's higher level forms. If you simply want a single target tower without the hassle, choose Nature. Even though Nature seems like an average tower, the truth is that all single target suffers from overkill and misfire, unless you're like the Celerity Tower with no projectile, so this problem is only natural and something you'll have to live with when you choose single target towers. The Earth Element: Earth Tower: Type: Earth Cost: 50 Damage: 2 Speed: 1 Range: 10 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Amplified Earth Tower: Type: Earth Cost: 175 Damage: 10 Speed: 1 Range: 10 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Focused Earth Tower: Type: Earth Cost: 625 Damage: 50 Speed: 1 Range: 10 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Refined Earth Tower: Type: Earth Cost: 2126 Damage: 250 Speed: 1 Range: 10 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Pure Earth Tower: Type: Earth Cost: 11225 Damage: 3750 Speed: 1 Range: 10 AOE: 2.25/4.5 Like the Nature tower, this tower doesn't get as much love or talk as much as it's AOE counter-parts. Like the Nature Element, Earth fits in the middle. Though it has the same AOE as Fire, it's slightly more sluggish, but packs more of a punch. It's range is also slightly less than the Water Element. Key Characteristics: Pros: -Decent attack -Decent range -Good AOE -Good against Light Cons: -Mediocre attack speed -Bad agsint Nature Explanation: Overall, this tower is decent. It really is in the middle of Fire and Water. It has the same AOE as Fire, but the DPS is significantly lower. The only thing this Element has over the Fire is it's range and attack, meaning it has more chances to hit the target with it's higher attack and range than a Fire Element, keep in mind, though, Fire has a much higher attack speed. Though the damage between Water and Fire are the same, Fire has a larger AOE, allowing it to do more splash damage, and therefore more damage to the creep wave Final Words: Once again I owe my thanks to Karawasa for creating this map, and for the players, as well as the community, contributors, testers and anyone else out there who has made an impact on Element TD for Starcraft II. I really hope Element TD can become big as I see a lot of potential in this game, and I hope that everyone keeps up their efforts in supporting this mod anyway they can. Without your efforts, I wouldn't have been able to make this guide. Please post your criticisms, comments, questions or new ideas about future guides. If you find any mistakes, or disagree with anything, please let me know!

Yeah it was my first time working with fraps and sony vegas... The main point of the guide and videos were about the uses of ray and grenade towers. I hope they were of help regarding those topics. It's a pain to make and upload the videos because of the time it takes to render everything and the upload time, and even then I'm only limited to 15 mins which isn't even close to a full game, so it's a lot of effort just for parts of a game. If I could get like a 30 minute video that would help a lot and it'd make it even more possible to upload a full game, though uploading a 30 minute game footage to youtube may take a whole day for me due to my crappy upload.

Yup: https://forums.eletd.com/Welcome-to-SC2-t2063.html

Replays are bugged, so you'd only get the first 7 mins or so until the replay will crash on you. I've uploaded youtube videos instead. Once replays start working, I'll post some.

The game is still in open beta. We tried out resell to see what the results would be like, and it seems it's not working out, so expect some changes in the next version. To truly take advantage of resell, you'd have to do specific builds, and/or be the last one to kill creeps. The idea for bonus XP based on lives left sounds like a good idea that should be considered. I'd be all for it. Keep in mind though that lives can help benefit you on the fruit level, so even though you don't get bonus XP, the bonus lives will surely help you score higher in fruits. That fact alone should help motivate you not to leak, and keep all your lives until the end.

Check out my sig for everything you'll need to know about downloads and latest versions.

I played a game of EleTD on WC3 for the first time in years and I just realized this has already been implemented somewhat in the WC version. I was really caught off guard on how much it changed from the last time I played it XD

That's an interesting proposal, increasing lower difficulty income but nerfing fruit points even more so for easier difficulties. Keep in mind that even if this happens, easier difficulties won't gain that much of a lead over harder difficulties due to the fact that it's not possible to mass the field with high tier towers anymore. We could buff income for easier difficulties, but not so much that they can mass the field, even in the hands of a skilled player. Honestly with this change, I don't think the legit newbies would be able to take advantage of this slight change. If you actually knew what you were doing, you should advance to the next difficulty instead of trying to gain more money from lower difficulties. I don't think it's a good idea to buff easier difficulties too much, otherwise it'll be abused, fruit level or not. If we buff easier difficulties so much that they're able to get crazy income, even with fruit points off, that's still broken, and that's not how the game should be played. The only helpful buff a new player can receive is a drastic interest boost, and that will most definitely be abused by more skilled people. What I'm trying to say is that if we buff the income for the easier difficulties, it shouldn't be too much; since it shouldn't be by much, legit newbies won't actually be able to take advantage of this buff. This buff would really be for people who knew what they were doing, for players who are seeking a mode to get the most money on. Legit new players won't know what they're doing, so a slight interest boost won't affect them at all. Currently the difficulty handicaps seem alright. It adds a necessary challenge to the game without ruining the gameplay by giving the newer players the minerals to fill the field in order to beat the game. When players realize their full potential on a difficulty, they will have to move on to the next difficulty in order to achieve a higher potential and so fourth. In my eyes, ideally, the highest potential one should be able to achieve in EleTD should be on VH.

If the easier difficulties provided more income, I might be inclined to start playing VE again to take advantage of the extra minerals and score higher on the fruit stage. The way I see it, other than the difficulty, easier difficulties shouldn't provide any incentives for harder difficulty players to play on them again. If VE and the other lower difficulties provided any more advantages, it might make those difficulties broken in the hands of a skilled player. Players should want to move on to the next level of difficulty once they think they've mastered their previous difficulty and keep climbing up. Isn't it the super weapon mode?

Cool, but isn't it backwards? As in it's supposed to be L>D>W>F>N>E instead of E<N<F<W<D<L?

Constant reselling is actually more of random gameplay. I'll admit AP and Random have their different playstyles, and it may not be right to force random gameplay onto ap since the two styles are different (AP being more micro based, while random being more macro based). Reselling has always been a random thing, and now that we've tried it on AP, the idea doesn't seem to work as well.

All the strategy in AP Standard mode is formed before the game even starts. There are no variable factors in Standard mode other than who finishes the creeps last, so I'd say there is really no strategy at all during the game. Strategy is predetermined along with your elements. I wouldn't base Element TD on a strategy type game. And yes, Element TD is tedious in terms of always having to sell and rebuild, at least on random, but because random is random, it lessens the burden of the game being too boring and tedious since you're offered many different elements randomly. You're judging too much of your experience of Element TD on Standard AP. Building towers to kill waves quickly is valid gameplay in competitive mode to rush opponents, and it's pretty fun too.

I just like the fact that it changed up the gameplay in AP. I haven't played many games yet, but perhaps it can get tedious due to the fact you're playing AP with 100% resell. I guess that's a problem with this change, along with the mandatory resell that you have to get in order to succeed. Unlike AP, random mode is not tedious due to the randomness of the mode.