Lavathing

I'm assuming a leaderboard reset will happen as well then?

Just as a fyi for those wondering, I hope to have some new guides out for patch 1.0 sometime this week.

Yes, the majority of your late game damage comes from Tsunami and Glacial towers (as well as the damage amp from Incantation towers), all of which require Light 2.

Thanks! Glad it helped you get #1 on the leaderboard. Thanks for the contribution! Really great stuff, good to hear from you as some of your replays served as inspiration for the guide.

Ok, going to reverse my statement on starting to prefer Pure at 7 rather than 6. A few reasons, at Wave 25 you're likely also doing your Nature Elemental level 3, so doing that and a Water Elemental level 3 can be a bit tough. However, more importantly, the bonus gold from taking the Pure helps you get a quick Refined Nature Tower (or two), whereas you likely won't need the Waterfall Tower until later. Going to leave the guide with Pure at 6 as the default option.

Ah, very nice! What are your thoughts on getting the Pure on 6 or 7? Guide says 6 atm because that seemed most popular, but I've been testing it and I think I prefer Water 2 at 6 and Pure at 7 rather than the inverse.

It wasn't my highscore, I linked to the top score on the leaderboard who was using that build I described, which at the time was #1 overall. However, it appears that user no longer exists on steam, so it disappeared off the leaderboard. In terms of me personally, I'm sitting at rank 41 on the leaderboards, but I'm not claiming to be the best player (or even close), just good at watching replays and writing organized, easy to follow guides.

Leaderboard Guides Nature/Water Guide by Lavathing Introduction Hello everyone! My name is Lavathing and I've decided to start a new Element TD guide project. I've recently become addicted to EleTD and noticed the distinct shortage of guides, especially those outlining the top strategies in the current meta. Due to my extensive history of guide writing, I thought I'd bring some of that expertise here. I plan to pump out guides frequently that outline the strategies used by those at the top of the leaderboard. For this first guide, I'll be focusing on the Nature and Water centric strategy that is currently dominating the top of the Normal game mode leaderboard. Here are some examples: EH.GIGABYTE.820.CN Kpop fangay prime Muse MPG -&?Ångest smh pimmelfrosch While each person above uses a slightly different strategy and layout, I've created this guide using the common points among the matches. With that said, this is my first time writing Tower Defense guides, so feedback, suggestions, and comments are greatly appreciated. Additionally, I do not intend to theorycraft my own guides (at least not yet), but rather write out guides for how top leaderboard players are playing. Thus, any insight from those competing on the leaderboard is also greatly appreciated. Let's get started! Game Settings Difficulty: Insane Game Mode: Normal Modifiers: Chaos / Rush Type: All Pick Top Score: 994,321 (as of 3/2/16 @ 1:30 AM EST) Elements Nature Water Nature Water Nature (You likely want to wait until the break between Wave 25 and 26 to do this rather than immediately, the level three elemental is tough to kill this early.) Pure Water Light Light Earth Earth Tower Build Order Note: Although not included below, Arrow Towers are an important part of not leaking early. Build as many as required early to avoid leaking and to kill waves as quickly as possible (and thus get a higher speed score multiplier). Arrow Towers return 98% of their cost when sold, so in reality you are only spending one gold for each one. Additionally, once you need to fight level two and three elementals you might want to build a few extra Nature Towers to help kill them. RNG Note: If you're unlucky and get a lot of Fire waves early, especially Fire Acolytes, and you are trying to push leaderboard rankings, just start a new game. Fire Acolytes before your first Focused Nature Tower (~Wave 10) will likely leak and ruin any leaderboard score. Wave 1: Build Nature Tower. Wave 5: Build Nature Tower. Wave 8: Build Nature Tower. Wave 10: Upgrade Nature Tower. Wave 14: Upgrade Nature Tower. Wave 16: Upgrade Nature Tower. Wave 18: Build Well Tower. Wave 20: Build two Nature Towers and upgrade one. Wave 24: Upgrade Well Tower to Spring Tower. Wave 27: Sell the low level Nature Tower. Wave 28: Upgrade two Focused Nature Towers to Refined Nature Tower. Wave 29: Upgrade (final) Focused Nature Tower to Refined Nature Tower. Wave 30: Upgrade Spring Tower to Waterfall Tower. Wave 31: Sell remaining Focused Nature Tower(s). Wave 36: Upgrade Refined Nature Tower to Pure Nature Tower. Wave 39: Build one Life, Tsunami, and Waterfall Tower. Wave 42: Build two Tsunami Towers. Wave 45: Upgrade Life Tower to Enchantment Tower. Wave 47: Build Four Polar Towers. Wave 48: Upgrade Refined Nature Tower to Pure Nature Tower. Wave 49: Build Enchantment Tower. Wave 50: Upgrade both Enchantment Towers to Incantation Towers. Wave 50: Build Waterfall Tower. Wave 51: Upgrade (final) Refined Nature Tower to Pure Nature Tower. Wave 52: Upgrade all four Polar Towers to Glacial Towers. Wave 53: Build two Tsunami Towers. Wave 54: Build Waterfall Tower. Wave 55: Build four Tsunami Towers, two Glacial Towers, and one Enchantment Tower. Tower Placement Note: Remember that tower placement is not set in stone. There is a lot of variation among the top scores on the leaderboard. However, all top scores place the majority of their towers in the "/" and "7" locations. Early Game Mid Game Late/End Game Conclusion / Ideas Going Forward Thanks for checking out my first Element TD guide! As I mentioned above, any and all feedback, suggestions, and comments are welcomed. I hope that this guide is helpful to players who are looking to climb the leaderboards by seeing what those at the top are currently doing. I know that due to the laborious nature of watching other player's EleTD replays, many people do not bother. These guides will seek to address that issue by providing guides on all strategies popular on the leaderboard. Going forward, I might upload accompanying videos showing leaderboard replays. Let me know if you'd like to see that! Again, thanks a lot for checking this out and I look forward to interacting with the EleTD community!