WindStrike

6 element is possible. The problem was 6 element + a level 3 and a level 2 by the start of 46. It just wasn't good at all. Anyhow, while I won't be able to test until later tonight or tomorrow, I thank you for dropping it to 2%.

I've done some VH Random games.... pretty much, if you don't have either a level 3 double or level 2 triple (damage, not support) by 46, you're dead. The amount of damage you do with weaker towers just cannot keep up with the health regen by that point. In fact, in earlier rounds, level 1 duals pretty much useless by 26. To an extent, you can still use them... but that's it. So maze mode is ridiculously hard, especially on all random. And this is coming from players that have played the game a ridiculous amount. So what's going to happen to players that try maze mode out and haven't really played that much? Complete slaughter. So long as that super high health regen is there... man, it's hard enough winning on normal difficulty with random on, unless you get handed some good stuff early. I'm voting for 1% health regeneration for the whole way through. Yeah, it's possible to abuse again, but at least random is possible given not-so-good combinations/6-element (which it is in the standard mode given practically any combination). I really like the 20 second interest change though - that felt really necessary. I think a better change than high health regen would be to keep health regen (lowered to 1% per second) and then force round change every minute. Like casual mode, except it's a backup instead of forced. This (combined with the lower health regen and 20 second interest) should block the singleplayer infinite builds while also allowing a lot of builds that were rendered useless by 2%+ health regen (even 2% is pretty darn high). The next round starting at a maximum of every 60 seconds sounds reasonable. In the standard game, it takes a full minute for a creep to get from start to finish. So for maze mode, the longest it could possibly last (through 60) is one hour. Of course, that rarely happens, however it would block some of the singleplayer abuse and super long mazes... while they could work, by the time creeps are halfway through, the next wave has started. Also, something else that's fairly retarded given the current health regen: mechanical. Every time a creep goes invulnerable, for the next 3.6 seconds, it gains back (currently) 10.8% of its health. Unless you have an instant kill build, that's going to severely hinder any defense. A few of us can handle the more recent changes that have made the game harder. However, that's probably a total of 1-2% of the players, and given that we don't exactly have the most visited forums for constant help to the community, it's detrimental to the game and in helping getting new players in. A good amount of these changes were needed, but more than anything, drop the health regen down to low amount and find some sort of alternative to preventing super long maze abuse.

Lol, on the contrary, 70 at 0.33 attack speed would buff its DPS. Current DPS is 180 (120/0.66). That DPS would be 210 (70/0.33). If you're aiming for less, it'd probably go with 50/0.33, which would bring it back to the original damage prior to the buff but doubling the napalm effect. I do see your point though, and it'd make it similar to the purpose of Gold towers - they're surprisingly good single target damage while giving a really good support benefit. Difference would be that flamethrower becomes increasingly more effective the farther you get mainly because it really benefits from slowing and combinations with other towers. Gold towers well... like Celerity and Torrent, practically useless by the end of the game (waves 56+), but god prior to then. Current version for DPS of napalm is 90 (60/0.66) Your version would be DPS of 120 (40/0.66) I think I like your version better. Though I haven't really given the buffed version of flamethrower an actual test, so... who knows.

Well, that's what it says on the WC3 Tower page. I just copied it straight off. If it changed and the page isn't updated, I'm not aware of it. Still, flamethrower needs a massive buff. It's terrible right now. EDIT: Oooh, you mean the 1000x40. I meant to say 100x40, my bad (getting 100 of those off? Well by that time, the target ought to be dead)

They are doing damage, but it's severely underpowered. Whoo, 100 stacks of napalm! When it dies, everything around it takes... 4000 damage. Add VH difficulty reduction and it's only 2000. Yeah uhh.... at later levels, that level of damage is insignificant. Quake is a tower that translated roughly the same from WC3 version to SC2 version, so I decided to compare the damage ratio of Quake vs. Flamethrower towers from WC3 version to SC2 version. Here's the results: WC3: Quake (0.66 attack speed) - 2000 damageFlamethrower (0.66 attack speed) - 1800 damageRatio: - 2 : 1.8 SC2: Quake (0.66 attack speed) - 200 damageFlamethrower (0.66 attack speed) - 100 damageRatio: - 2 : 1 To make matters worse, let's look at a certain support tower comparison. SC2: Muck (1 attack speed) - 150 damageFlamethrower (0.66 attack speed) - 100 damageDPS rounds out to the exact same. Difference? Muck slows (especially level 2 version), thus amplifying its damage to be more than flamethrower, even with the napalm. Last I checked, even though support towers could definitely use a huge damage buff, flamethrower is not a support tower. While it does need to be paired with good single-target towers (ie, Magnify) in order for its effect to be maximized, it should still hold somewhat decently on its own, and right now, it doesn't make the cut at all. My suggestion would be to buff Flamethrower to 175 damage, and napalm to 75 per stack. It's that bad right now. EDIT: Err, 100 stacks of napalm, not 1000, lol.

I gave it another try after the patch. It does damage... I think. It's hard to tell really, because it felt like my other towers were doing so much more. I'm going to give the Warcraft 3 version a shot later and see just what the difference is between the two versions, because the new flamethrower feels like nothing compared to the old one.

Just tested it myself, did some flamethrower stacks on a bunch of creeps, killed them with magnifies, and there was no damage from the napalm explosions. In fact, the explosions themselves were barely visible. By the way, in the Warcraft 3 version, it listed how many flamethrower stacks there were periodically. Could that be added back?

The hero mode is pretty darn awesome, but for someone that's new to it, that person can be pretty darn confused when loading up the hero evolution menu and having a bunch of buttons with pictures on them and only showing what they do after you read through them. This can easily distract a person from reality (aka dying to wave 3) while they attempt to get things, and by the time they have, they're already dead. This suggestion is small improvement to the UI on it, where the improvements and abilities are grouped together under labels. The stat boosts would stay the same, the rest might be shifted around slightly. Using my crappy paint skills is a general mockup of it. And yes, I forgot the select and cancel buttons. Crappy mockup picture is attached.

So after I abused mazing mode with super long mazes (I'm sure others did this as well), Karawasa decided to add health regen to mazing mode, which is a perfectly fine change. However, it seems a bit... overboard. To the extent that it obsoletes quite a few builds. As it is right now, it goes from 1% of its health back a second all the way up to 4% of its health back per second. Which means in the beginning, it won't affect anything until creeps have at least 100 hp, and by the end, creeps move at double speed and can rejeuvenate back to full health in under 25 seconds. Commandos have 56,421 hp and regenerate 2,257 hp a second. Very few towers in the game actually even have that amount of DPS (namely single target towers), and it takes a Forge 3 or Well 3 buff to go on par with that regeneration for most towers. Builds like (one of my personal favorites) Poison and Flood towers to weaken the creeps and then finish them off with Death towers doesn't work, because by the time they get to the death towers, they're already back to half health. Well, there goes one tower out the window. And often times, even if your maze just spirals around one area and isn't very long, by the time fruit go out of your maze, to the second checkpoint, and back to the start of your maze again, they're full health. What was the point of health regeneration for maze mode again? Not so things could infinitely stay alive, but to prevent super long mazes that abuse an extremely low amount of towers, thus gaining ridiculous interest and still managing to kill them all. Instead, it is forcing the defense to be oriented around instantly killing everything in one go or using mass single target defenses in order to take them out. Long mazes should still be a viable strategy, but as it is with ridiculous health regeneration rates (especially towards the end game), it's just a suicidal idea. My opinion is that health regeneration should stay in the game, but rather than scale upwards like with speed, it ought to be a static regeneration rate. The average time for creeps to start out, go through a maze and get all the way to the end is somewhere between 45 seconds and a minute. ... and at 4% health regeneration, unless you somehow have mass kill along the entire way (which is extremely unlikely), anything that gets through might as well come back at full health. That said, I propose a static 2% health regeneration rate for the entire way through (if even). Factoring in the time it would take for the creeps to get out of your maze of damage and come back, they wouldn't be back at full health... maybe up to half of its health back at best. This provides a bit of an early game preventive for super long maze and minimal tower abuse while not killing builds off in the endgame. Additionally, elemental summons should not have health regeneration, as they can infinitely go through your defense and single-handedly kill you because you don't have the single-target killing power (cough, early level 3 in random mode).

"-Fixed elemental bosses not having health/shield regen (Mazing)" Could you revert this change? I had a level 3 summoned in mazing and had absolutely no way of killing it, and because the towers given to me didn't really allow for single target killing, the level 3 infinitely looped through my maze (it wasn't even that long), regenerated all of its health every time, and eventually just outright killed me. Otherwise, really good patch, I enjoy it overall.

So, started a team match out, picked the settings, picked team 1 (while also messing around a bit while waiting for timer), and there was no builder or summoning center at the end of the timer. And then creeps went into the player 6 zone, as I was orange. No idea how it happened really. What happened.SC2Replay

First replay for the new team mode! Mass support towers, flood, poison, death and a good amount of other towers. Brought to you by myself and Venny. Team VH _ 179 Kills_ 1253 Points.SC2Replay

Well, here's this defense abusing the hero. Got two more defenses to try - infrared and mass haste. I have the feeling infrared is going to win out of all of them. Ran in VersusAI. VH Hero _ 165 Fruits_ 1155 Points.SC2Replay

Vapor Towers also have a range indicator of 12 and a range of 10.

Super duper level 1 torrent tower bug of doom is back! Yeah, douse is adding to its attack damagae again, thereby giving it the power of multiple pure towers combined so.... that should probably be fixed very soon. I'll go verify whether the level 2 one does it or not.

True. That said, if this suggestion doesn't go through, please bring back the old random system, aka no level 2s until 20 and no level 3s until 40. As it is now.... some things can get brutal and extreme + random is now practically impossible.

Well, this was certainly a fun run. Had about 10k leftover, so if I redo the defense, I'll probably try mixing in some infrareds in there. Who knows. Anyhow, I spammed vapor this time. See for yourself. Ran in VersusAI VH Maze Hero _ 113 Fruits_ 719 Points.SC2Replay

The chance of level 1 element on 50 should probably stay. My problem with a level 1 element on 55 is... practically its only purpose is for periodic towers. Or say you have a good 4 element build and suddenly, your last element is a level 1. It offers a little on the support towers, but overall, that last element pick could be used for something better. Well, that's just my little opinion on it. Problem is, I'm anti 6-element, so of course I'm going to be hating on a level 1 at 55.

Rather than the recent change that just turn VH Extreme Random practically impossible (level 2's capable of coming at 15 and level 3's at 30), I propose another system. Wave 5 - 100% chance of Level 1Wave 10 - 100% chance of Level 1Wave 15 - 100% chance of Level 1Wave 20 - 50% chance of Level 1, 50% chance of Level 2Wave 25 - 25% chance of Level 1, 75% chance of Level 2Wave 30 - 25% chance of Level 1, 75% chance of Level 2Wave 35 - 25% chance of Level 1, 75% chance of Level 2Wave 40 - 25% chance of Level 1, 50% chance of Level 2, 25% chance of Level 3Wave 45 - 25% chance of Level 1, 25% chance of Level 2, 50% chance of Level 3Wave 50 - 0% chance of Level 1, 50% chance of Level 2, 50% chance of Level 3Wave 55 - 0% chance of Level 1, 25% chance of Level 2, 75% chance of Level 3 Of course, that's the simple version. Given that there's a division of elements at each random selection, what's the actual version? (Starting Wave 20, assuming you have Water 1, Fire 1, Dark 1) Wave 20 - 50% chance of Level 1, 50% chance of Level 216% chance of Nature 116% chance of Earth 116% chance of Light 116% chance of Water 216%chance of Fire 216% chance of Dark 2Wave 25 - 25% chance of Level 1, 75% chance of Level 2 (You got Fire 2)8.33% chance of Nature 18.33% chance of Earth 18.33% chance of Light 137.5% chance of Water 237.5% chance of Dark 2Wave 30 - 25% chance of Level 1, 75% chance of Level 2 (You got Earth 1)12.5% chance of Nature 112.5% chance of Light 125% chance of Earth 225% chance of Water 225% chance of Dark 2Wave 35 - 25% chance of Level 1, 75% chance of Level 2 (You got Earth 2)12.5% chance of Nature 112.5% chance of Light 137.5% chance of Water 237.5% chance of Dark 2Wave 40 - 25% chance of Level 1, 50% chance of Level 2, 25% chance of Level 3 (You got Dark 2)12.5% chance of Nature 112.5% chance of Light 125% chance of Water 225% chance of Dark 212.5% chance of Fire 312.5% chance of Earth 3 And so on and so forth. Not sure what the exact formula would be given that, but... I figure it may balance out that ridiculously high chance of 6-element in random and provide a better chance of 4-element. Percentages would be changeable, I was just using that as an example.

It's risky for multiplayer games though, so if anything, try changing it to a level 2 quark rush, pop it on round 21, sit for a while (gonna have to build some grenades or something on 30), grab two money towers (use this guide here for positioning - https://forums.eletd.com/Money-and-Life-Towers-t2823.html ), get the top one to a wealth tower asap and the bottom one to wealth tower soon after. Twould recommend placing all of this such that one forge tower can reach them all (aka right side). Honestly, for multiplayer games, try out this strategy. Should have 40k+ saved up by the time you need to spend it: https://forums.eletd.com/120-VH-154-Fruits-...ints-t2820.html Pretty much, rush for Level 2 Flood tower, drop it on 31; should be able to kill the Water 3 and Nature 3 with two passes (drop to fastest attack speed temporarily), and then somewhere in the late 40s, grab the muck/barb towers, 51 get the level 2s (you may have a second flood tower by then), and as 54 is ending, drop a Pure Nature + Well in the top-right corner along with a Death tower. Rest of the money well... you just keep expanding off all of that. Dark 3 will be the last element you get, allowing you to get level 3 decay towers (top-right corner) and 8 level 3 poison towers w/ fountains for one of the middle two peninsulas (depends on where your slowing is set up). If you'd like to play against it ingame, bug me via PM or shoutbox or IRC (if I'm there) and I'll get on.

As it is, Element Tower Defense is an outstanding game with a brilliant design. It would take a player hundreds of hours to find the best strategies and combinations, and it's usually still fun because the player is exploring new ideas. Why isn't in the top spot? Well, Tower Defense games aren't the most competitive games, and if you'll notice, all of the top spots are filled with nothing but competitive games. That, and the popularity system sucks. It's also gone through a good multitude of different modes - Hero Mode, Team Mode, Element Tower Wars, Super Weapon Mode, Draft Pick Mode, Maze Mode, etc... some turned out good, some could've been better. So we'll be holding a good ol' fashioned discussion of stuff to (for now) discuss bringing back Hero Mode and redesigning Element Tower Wars (now that it is split off into a different map). Other ideas are always welcome, but these will be the primary topics. Get some ideas started and bring 'em to the discussion, no matter how crazy or absurd they are. The more ideas, the better. Discussion will be held in EleTD's IRC channel on Saturday, March 10th at 9pm EST. Feel free to go ahead and post concepts of stuff here. It will give us more to think and talk about for the discussion. For those unfamiliar with IRC, see the quote below to see how to get into the channel:

As far as I know this is with Quark and Nova only (I haven't check other 10-range towers). The actual range on Quark and Nova towers is 10, but the range indicator is showing up as 12 range. Try comparing with a nearby ray tower, you'll notice them being identical. I think it's just the indicator (haven't completely confirmed this), but it may be the range as well; it's hard to tell.

In mazing mode, when you kill an unit with undead status and it comes back from the dead, it moves at the default speed rather than the modified and faster speed.

Lol, I think if I run this from the very beginning, I might have enough to cover the entire map in infrareds, save that topside and rightside perimeter. Unlike that other replay, there were no actual blockages, so the fruit getting stuck... yeah, I don't know what caused that, so this replay should actually be valid. So here's my ingenious defense idea... if I were to run it in multiplayer, I wouldn't because I'd be running a spiral defense w/ quarks instead. Warning, if you're actually going to watch through the end, LOWER YOUR GRAPHICS SETTINGS TO LOWEST. It uhh... lags. To death. I normally run at lowest 20 fps in large multiplayer games. This dropped to 3-4 fps. Singleplayer. Ran in VersusAI. VH Maze _ 731 Fruits_ 5117 Points.SC2Replay

Yeah... here's the replay. NEED ROCKS, SO MUCH LAG. Ran in VersusAI. VH Maze _ 412 Fruits_ 2947 Points.SC2Replay