WindStrike

I don't know how I made this defense, but there were several clogs, and thus, they all just stocked up in the top-right corner. After a bit, I tried opening a few areas up slightly, and eventually, they stopped clogging. Otherwise uhhh.... wow. Gold abuse to the max. I can't help but think Infrared might actually do better though. VH Maze _ 359 Fruits_ 2513 Points _stuck fruit_.SC2Replay

Just ran a match to see if I can get a pure fire tower out by 37 (it works, it's hilariously awesome), and towards the end of the game, I built some flamespewers. Something felt out of place when I had all these towers shooting and yet they weren't dying that fast when I noticed that units covered in the napalm were not exploding when dying. I don't know if this is the case of flamethrowers, but it is for flamespewers. I didn't combo with money towers, so that wasn't the case either. Also, is napalm supposed to have a time limit on it? Right now, it just.. keeps on stacking with no falloff. Which I'm perfectly cool with it, just verifying that. Here's the replay, it's at the end of it. Ran in VersusAI. Flamespewer bug.SC2Replay

Could you increase the amount of spacing required for the wall detection such that there's a tower's worth of space? Right, creeps are able to move through small spaces, and I'm encountering all sorts of buggy issues, tower displacement when upgrading, and.. stuff. Creeps are able to get through less than half a space currently - put two towers diagonally next to each other with corners touching and creeps can still get through it. EDIT: This needs to be added. Period. I should not be able to fill the entire map with towers in single-player due to that much stalling.

This ain't final, some stuff is still being added and fixed for maze mode, but in the mean time, have a haxorific replay of pre-release maze mode. EDIT: No one can watch it since map is private. Everyone who played already has the replay.

I figured (since there's a lack of activity here) that I'd just compile a list of all of the things that could be implemented, balanced, or fixed with the next version. Ones on the top are more important than ones on the bottom, in my opinion. Flamethrower + Money. It's outlined here. When units are napalmed but killed by a money tower, the only effect that will go off is the napalm explosion. You won't get extra money from it. Right now, the D+E+F+L build is really suffering because it can't benefit from both triple towers' effects. While it's not really the best idea in all pick, I have gotten this build a few times in random, and it's really detrimental not being able to use flamethrower + gold with their effects.Quark towers need a nerf. Definitely wouldn't do any more than dropping them to 80% of what they are now, but the fact that you can use so few of them and slaughter everything like it's a joke... while I love the fact that I can indeed do this, they're definitely overpowered at the moment.Likewise, Vapor towers could use a buff. Yes, they work a lot better with double slowing but... Quark still does better, and even after a nerf, they'll still do better. Onto the less important ones: Tower damage meter, few ways to implement it, it would probably help a lot of players out. Original thread here.This is more specifically for "super pro players" that have quite simply played too much EleTD and interest abuse like crazy. Ray and Grenade towers don't need buffing, and those that continue to use and abuse them throughout the 30's while using forge or well towers to buff other towers probably have run into the issue of super buffs being applied to the wrong towers. Original topic here.Lol, Spout Tower x2 here. If I ever manage to figure out the timing on that and abuse it, I'll let you know with a replay (for the history books). Though if it actually becomes a problem to that level, just stick a cooldown timer on it or something. I may post another suggestion later regarding trickery towers. As there are quite a number of things here, figure I won't bother just yet.

Didn't the Warcraft 3 version show damage numbers whenever something hit? That would be useful, especially when there's a difficulty damage reduction and you want to know the actual damage your towers are doing so that you know if you'll one-shot the target or not. I'd really like something like that when I've got, say Corrosion and Hex towers plus some other stuff to see how that stacks up vs. different builds.

Ahh, isn't infrared spam just wonderful? And yes, I intend on running a team version of this w/ Kheldar. Scary part is, just as many infrareds (if not more) + forge + well. That ain't right. Should be able to break the 300 kills barrier for team games whenever we around to it. (Warning - it will lag towards the end... badly.) 1.21 VH _ 178 Fruits_ 1246 Points.SC2Replay

Many times, when I need a reserve set of ray or grenade towers to help kill the wave, it's frustrating when a forge, well or trickery tower buffs them instead the meaningful towers. And by the time anyone gets any of those.... ray and grenade towers don't need buffing. It's just pointless. They're too weak and it gets in the way of my actual defense. Could you make it so that forge, well and trickery do not buff these two towers?

Might as well do a rock, because the next cheapest are level 1 ray and grenade towers (7 minerals), and here's the problem with them - they'll get auto-buffed by forge, well and trickery. Speaking of trickery, how would that tower work? Would you be able to set its clone placements so that it doesn't end up screwing up your maze? Alternative idea is when you build a tower, you can build attachments of it anywhere within a 1 radius block. They would cost less and do proportionally less damage as well, but it would enable you to maze with them still. Though honestly, I'd just go with the rocks and make then 5 minerals or something. It's not like you need to maze in the early game, even on very hard. Regarding the terrain, it's not going to be one plain stretch of land with the only variation showing checkpoints, is it? I figure there'd be some amount of differentiation and variety of the terrain across the area to be able to plan your tower locations out and the like (ex, there's currently room for a width of two towers at any given area). Though now that you're supporting maze mode, it brings another idea to fruition - Elemental DOTA Tower Wars! (lol) In a nutshell, it'd switch to a 4v4 mode with the standard DOTA type pathing, and instead of controlling heroes, you control elemental tower builders to defend against the oncoming waves (every minute, maybe faster, the wave spawns) and you'd be able to change the element/type of creep for each lane spawn. If you want, I can post a full topic on this; it was some crazy idea I came up with shortly after SC2 came out, minus the Element specific stuff. And this idea is not referring to jolin012's idea in any way (in fact, I didn't even know about it until two seconds ago).

Earth towers do 66% of the DPS of Fire towers. Its only upside is a +2 range difference, but it's insignificant when the tower itself is completely outclassed. Laser towers... for a great single target tower, they feel a little weak. Also, their fighters need to move around faster, because when you set them to shoot random targets or to weaken the enemies, they waste time moving to a new location and lose some of the damage output they should have.

Just ran a team game with Kheldar, and after a few tries based on one strategy, we got a good gold run segwaying into Quark + Poison + Death + bunch of supports. Broke the 2K point barrier for Very Hard. If only we managed 8 more kills. WindStrike - W3, N3, D3, E2 Kheldar - F3, E3, L3, N2 Team VH _ 292 Kills_ 2044 Points.SC2Replay

I recall there being a thread that compared the DPS of Quake (Fire+Nature+Earth) to Torrent (Light+Water+Nature) towers saying that Quake was far superior, but I can't really find it anymore. That thread was in fact true, but it only really applied for the late game (rounds 56+) when Torrent gets less useful. Everything prior to it though, you will slaughter just by manual usage of the Douse ability + a Well Tower. Placements Anywhere in the middle honestly. Just so long as you're able to hit the entire middle bend. So long as the wave isn't undead, fast or mechanical, you can have the wave go the entire way until they're all in the range, use Douse, and observe every single one dying. Make sure you have a Well Tower buffing the Torrent Tower so that it attacks faster, thus charging its Douse ability faster. Turn off the autocast because you'll only need one (maaaybe 2 starting in the mid 40's), and it should be easy to micromanage the ability usage of just one or two towers. Also, rush Level 3 Well Towers with them, because it'll allow them to use max level Douse every single wave and hit most if not all of the targets. More than likely, the Level 3 will get through once on 35 and 40, but it'll be well worth it. Strategies Torrent can combo really well with its dual towers, depending on which you're deciding to main. If you want to sneak a few kills in with Life Towers (Light+Nature), kill most of them wave using Torrent (or weaken it to near death) and then use Life Towers to finish them off. Ice Towers can be stuck on the far left side in the middle island (no more than 4) to help weaken creeps if need be. But honestly, if you're not using Life Towers to steal lives, you might as well just be solo-ing with one Torrent Tower (plus Well buff) up through the mid 40's, at which point you'll need two. Once you're at the 50's, grab either a Pure Nature or a Pure Light as fast as possible (only get Pure Water if your next element is Fire, aka double slowing from Ion + Nova). Torrents unfortunately suffer from the same problem as Celerity Towers that at 56+, they're not as good, but they're still useful if you're able to manually use their Douse ability to still hit the whole wave. Just don't get more than those two Torrent Towers that you already have, and you won't really need to sell them either. Assuming you're on a 4-element build, Fire 2 (as stated previously) is a good pick for double slowing, though you'll need a good tower to make use of that. Celerity becomes useless and there's no point in grabbing more Torrent Towers. In that case, you may not have gotten Light 3 and instead went Fire 3, aka Infrared Towers (Fire+Nature). Earth 2 gives you a good combo of Polar and Incantation supports for double damage amplification, which leaves Ephemeral for making use of those supports to pick off the weak ones. Use Pure Natures here to help do single target damage, and if you grabbed Earth 3 instead of Light 3, you can use Jet Towers to really soften guys up, even if you have no slowing. Dark 2 isn't recommended due to four Triple Damage Towers, unless you just want to spam Hail + Flooding + Well all day which works pretty decently actually. Tips Just like with Celerity Towers, use as few Torrent Towers as possible, and make sure you have a Well Tower to get their ability damage up as fast as possible. You'll be slaughtering waves at a good pace and racking in the interest abuse for a good while. Might want to have an Ice Tower or two on round 49 though (Dark). Hopefully this guide was helpful to players, and please put them in the middle. They become fairly mediocre if you put them anywhere else.

If there's one thing Celerity (Water+Nature+Fire) and Torrent (Light+Water+Nature) towers excel well in, it's that you can use very few (even just one) and with Well Tower support, you can solo up to the late 40's and rack up interest. Yes, they're not great in the late-game and become nearly worthless in the last few rounds, but up till that point, they slaughter everything. This guide will point out where to put the Celerity Tower (and maybe a secondary spot... if you even need it). Placements As we know, Celerity gets the most damage the farthest it can hit. See that location in the screenshot? At the start of a round, you can hit them on the top-left corner, practically right after they spawn. If it's an Earth round, everyone in the game is screwed because you're one-shotting them and pretty much clearing the wave instantly. Assuming the creeps live past the top-left corner, you have the far-left side, the middle section of the bottom, the middle section of the far right, and the corner of the last stretch. And because you want it to hit as far as possible, you don't want to be able to hit any more than just those "middle spots". And of course, it may not do as much damage, but it'll hit everywhere in between as well. If you want a secondary spot (maybe against Fire rounds), place it just above that spot. It may not really hit the bottom, but that's fine, because it'll still hit that top-left spot, the right side, and a larger area of the top side. Strategies Ah, don't we love triple towers that include good dual combinations to support it? With Celerity, you'll have Infrared (Fire+Nature) and Well (Water+Nature). Don't put all of your Infrareds in one spot - keep them in the same general area, but space them out a bit such that creeps continue to get hit by them, which severely amplifies the damage. Vapor... if you look at it initially, it looks like Quark but worse. However, its damage works like this - it hits everything in a good area, and then THOSE hits have splash and gain more damage for more creeps. So if you have no slowing, Vapor is pretty much pointless for covering your Fire weakness - just use Infrared in that case. For rounds 35 and 40 (assuming a 4-element build), just rush a Level 3 Well Tower, because you'll not only be sitting on one damage tower, but every other damage tower you build benefits from that Well Tower a lot. As a result, interest kicks in a ridiculous amount (not quite as much as Money, lol) and you'll have a lot more money than those than just spend their minerals when they get it, minimizing the effect of interest (and most of these players don't know about proper placements, which is huge). Celerity falls under the same category as Money and Life Towers - they becoming practically useless rounds 56 and beyond, but they're amazingly useful prior to that point. That said, once you hit round 56, sell it and start using your other towers. Assuming you're using 4-element build and want your Vapor Towers to pwn (along with Infrared Towers), go Light 2, because then you'll have Nova/Ion, aka double slowing. Both Infrared and Vapor REALLY benefit off of the extra splash from that slowing, and your defense suddenly becomes ridiculously awesome. Though you'll have troubles against single targets still, but you'll have Pure Natures, so just stick them in the top-right corner (Nature is best on double pass) and you'll gain a lot of kills from them. Alternatively, Dark 2 would work nicely because of double damage amplification (Erosion+Jinx). Additionally, you'll have access to Flood Towers, quite possibly the best Triple Damage Towers in the game simply because of its flexibility. Flood + Infrared (still very good even without slowing) + Double damage amp = everything is screwed. Earth 2 isn't recommended due to having all Triple Damage Towers and one of them being practically useless lategame (Celerity). Tips Once again, use as few as possible. If other players are killing too fast, either get another Celerity Tower or grab a few Infrared Towers (no more than 3 so that you can sit on one Well Tower... well, until you need more). I hope this guide was helpful, and if you didn't read all of it, just look at the god placement and be set for life when using Water+Nature+Fire.

The following guide demonstrates how to use Money (Light+Earth+Fire) and Life (Light+Nature) towers. Both towers are sometimes regarded as underpowered, but the actuality is that these towers lead to some of the most powerful defenses due to the advantages they provide. Placements This where people have the most trouble, and they are primary cause of why these towers feel a lot weaker than they really are. 16 range towers can't exactly reach just anywhere, and since Money and Life towers shoot really slow (1.5 fire rate), having them trying to shoot the most space possible will result in a total of maybe 15-20 hits, whereas a double-pass spot can land about 30 hits. Additionally, their effects are based on the kill, so it's wasteful to try and mass a bunch of them. Instead, you'll only want a handful - no more than 3 money towers or no more than 6 life towers. First Placement Your first placement should be on the right side, a few spaces from the top. If you're in single-player and the tower is capable of one-hit killing the targets, there's a way to selectively target the enemies such that you're able to solo an entire round with that tower in that spot. However, it must one-hit kill, and it must be a Normal, Image or Healing round. Mechanical has a tendency to block you, Undead is obvious, and Fast ends up having too many get by you. When they come in on the first pass (going through the middle), kill every other enemy. However, about 4 or 5 kills in, let two of them group together, and then proceed back to killing every other enemy. You should be able to kill everything on the right side. Don't try this in multiplayer, as other people are likely to be killing the waves way faster than that. Second & Third Placements In that image, you're able to see two more placements. The one on the right would be your second placement, like a mirror of the one on the top side. Now, that third spot in the bottom-left... if you take a look at the image closely, the money tower is just barely able to hit targets that are just starting to enter the middle area. I like to call this the "sniper location". Not only does it hit the largest area (able to pull off about 25 hits and focus fire Level 2's and Level 3's down), but if the enemies coming into the middle are weak enough, it can one-shot snipe them from that location. For the record, the same spots apply to Life Towers. You may need to grab up to a total of 6 of them for them to be as effective, though it's your choice. Tower #4 would go just below the first location, Tower #5 would go just above the second location, and Tower #6 would go just to the right of the third location. Don't bother going above 3 Money towers and don't go above 6 Life towers. If you need more killing power, use other towers that will have better late-game usage. Money Tower Strategies These towers are awesome because of their super single target damage. They're great for picking stragglers off and amazing versus Level 2 and 3 Elemental Bosses (Two Wealth Towers will kill a level 3 if you get it right after round 35, Three for right after round 40). However, the best part are the dual towers that come with it. You have Electric (Light+Fire) for covering the elemental weakness that Money Towers have. Knows those Life Tower Placements #4-6? Your Electric towers would go there, and honestly, you wouldn't want more than that. Quark Towers (Light+Earth) are downright amazing for softening the creeps so that your Money Towers can pick them off and give you that extra gold. And to top it off, if you're suddenly not one-hit killing creeps, fix that problem with Forge Towers. It may only cover a wave or two, but once you've got Level 3 Forge Towers (Factory), you'll be set through 45, at which point you can grab Level 3 Light and upgrade your Quark and Electric Towers to Level 3 and be set for life until round 55. Now, Money Towers don't last forever. Once they start taking 10+ hits to kill something, they suck, so by round 56, they're pretty much worthless - you might as well sell them, and although you only have 75% sell, the amount of money you've racked up through Money Towers far outweighs the small waste you're going to make. Additionally, you should have another two element picks by now - I'd recommend either Nature 2 or Water 2 (Dark 2 gives you nothing but four triple damage towers). If you pick Nature 2, you'll be using Quake/Quark towers to soften the waves while Nova slows them and Enchantment amplifies the damage taken. Unfortunately, this doesn't leave much for the single target department, so fill up on as many locations with Quake/Quark/Nova as you can (should be a maximum of 3) and let the last of your money be spent on two Pure Light towers, which should be somewhere in the middle. If you went Water 2, you get Ion Towers to slow them down and Polar Towers to lop off some hitpoints temporarily - that said, DEFINITELY use Pure Light towers and have them shoot the ones that are severely weakened from the Polar Towers. Quark Towers can soften enemies down a bunch while you have a payload of Haste Towers ready to slaughter the remainder. Although you don't get any actual splash damage, Haste Towers are the highest single-target damage tower in the game, so giving them extra time with the Ion Towers slowing creeps down is a huge help. Life Tower Strategies I'm personally not as fond of Life Towers because although they're cheaper than Money Towers, they're lower damage per hit (but same damage/cost ratio), and that gold bonus is honestly better than a life bonus (unless you're going for 4 pure lights) because your defense becomes a lot stronger than someone with a weaker defense, despite the number of lives. However, they can still work really well, because the towers they combo with are awesome. Since you're getting at least 2 Level 3 Elements, you'll want a 4-element build, meaning Well or Trickery. Trickery isn't the best idea because your damage types don't have the best variety, and Disease towers are meant to be the finishing blow... kinda contradictory to Life Towers. So you'll want to go for Well. With this path, you'll have your Life Towers in their nice positions, Ice Towers (stick no more than a total of 4 as far left as possible on the middle island), and Torrent Towers, your best friend. You don't need more than two of them, ever. Put a maximum of two in the middle and micromanage their Douse effect. Since you'll want your Life Towers to make the killing blow, you can do this two ways: Weaken the entire wave to pretty much near death. This may require a bit of calculation in your head, so if you're not good with that, try the next one.Kill about 2/3rds to 3/4ths the wave. The torrent towers themselves do crap damage outside of Douse and will just be charging up their Douse with pretty much senseless attacks. The remainder of the wave will be picked off by Life Towers, and since your Ice Towers are weakening them, you shouldn't have a problem killing them (unless they're fire, in which case nuke them all with the Torrent Towers). Then, Well Towers fix everything. In fact, if you time things well enough, you don't need more than one Torrent Tower, so long as you have a Level 2 Well tower backing it up. Life Towers are just like Money Towers in that they become absolutely useless starting round 56. At this point, you should have a Level 2 of another element - don't get Dark 2 with this, you'll end up with nothing but Damage Towers (unless you like the idea of spamming Hail Towers). With Fire 2, you'll get double slowing (Nova + Ion), but unfortunately, both Celerity and Torrent are rather weak in the late game (Fruit Round). It's hard to rely on Ice Towers because of their limited positions. That said, Earth 2 is probably your best bet. Polar and Enchantment towers give you double damage amplifications while your Pure Natures and Ephemeral Towers can take care of the weakened targets. Anything that lived the first pass for regular rounds won't live the second pass. Your Torrent towers aren't the best, but they'll clear Round 57 for you (Fire+Image), and if you manage them properly, you can do a good amount of damage against the Fruit Round. Tips With Money and Life Towers, you'll want to conserve gold. That said, use as few towers as possible (this goes for every build, actually). Just because you now have a bunch of a good placements doesn't mean you should use them all as fast as possible. It's unnecessary, wasteful, and (especially with Money Towers) you won't get much from interest, which gives you a lot more than you might think (*cough*). Just go one spot at a time and diversify your towers. For Money, aim for a second Money Tower before you get a second Quark or Electric Tower. Same for Life before getting a second Torrent or Ice Tower. Both of these are best with 4 element builds, and that's because you'll get Well or Forge, thus maximizing the usefulness of Money and Life towers. Otherwise, they'd pretty much lose all usefulness by the mid 40's, and you don't want to be selling towers at that point, as it's too wasteful too early. I hope this guide was helpful to people, and if you didn't read the whole thing (long walls of text), at the very least, check out the placements. These will help immensely.

Just did a single-player run of a build I'm rather liking. Though I may decide to cut down on the poison towers at the end and instead use Flood Towers on Pressure 2 for a little more focused killing power. Might also try some new placements in the top-right area next time and see if I can get those Death Towers down from the far top-right. W3 N3 D3 E2 (Ran in VersusAI) 1.20 VH_ 154 Fruits _ 1078 Points.SC2Replay

Just did the match, and I have the feeling he's gonna ask me for a rematch once he learns those placements. Good game overall though the match itself ended relatively early. Victor - WindStrike Also, we totally need team draft pick. It'd be epic. Draft Pick WindStrike _victor_ vs Sawneyrath.SC2Replay

Indeed. Waiting on B.net now. What's your character code?

Dangit, knew I should've claimed Celerity earlier. Choice #6 Ephemeral. Choice #7 Quake. Doubles Line-up - Well, Decay, Jet, Cannon, Infrared Triples Line-up - Flooding, Muck, Barb, Erosion, Jinx, Ephemeral, Quake LET'S DO THIS! Add WindStrike.294 and message me on B.net when you're ready (or just pop in the Element TD channel and say hi).

Choice #4 is Erosion, Choice #5 is Jinx.

Indeed. Choice #2 is Muck and Choice #3 is Barb.

(No forge or trickery? Interesting.) Choice #5 Infrared. Onto triples.... Choice #1 Flooding.

Choice #3 Jet. Choice #4 Cannon.

Darn, there goes that idea. Choice #1 for me is Well. Choice #2 is Decay. (camping the IRC channel now, twill go faster there)

Well, should have time on my end starting tomorrow night. Though probably be better off on Sunday. WindStrike.294, NA realm. Challenge accepted?

To veterans of tower wars games in general, it's known that income is a flawed system, no matter how it's done. Whoever manages to abuse income the most while using minimal defenses that are enough to beat anything automatically wins. For Element Tower Wars, it may be a little different in that it's not permanent, but now it's a huge problem between balancing income and killing creeps. While the balance for it probably does exist, the addition of income and spamming creeps to win for EleTW makes it feel like a generic Tower Wars game, and as a result, the elements part feels like a gimmick. Technically, all of the depth and strategy is still there, but it's hidden and subdued under the force of "income". Unfortunately, income is currently the best system for tower wars. But if it's flawed, that means it's possible for something better than income to exist - instead of taking 20 something matches to figure out that ultimate combo that can't be beaten and everything calculated, it'd be a game that has lots of different strategies and combinations, just like how the original EleTD set a new standard for Tower Defense games. Ideally, it would allow for simplicity with lots of depth. Easy to learn but hard to master (ex, see Hero Attack, very easy map to pick up). No one has come up with a better system of income... till now. I'm asking this community to come up with the successor to income and tower wars games. Something that can compliment Element Tower Wars such that the original gameplay is still there without feeling like just some extra feature. Note that by changing the income system to something else, it could change the entire thing in that you wouldn't send creeps in the same way. Post your suggestions here, be it random, outlandish, crazy, or even if you think it's not gonna work. All ideas are welcome, and quite frankly, it's probably the only way to come up with something better. (I'll put up random ideas on my end later.)