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Hey everybody, I'm kiyoona, a player with great experience in Element Tower Defense (SC2) from Hungary, and I thought about sharing my favorite builds with you guys for Non-mazing mode against other players. I'm not sure what made me post this. I guess I'm just bored of winning all the time by a landslide and having no rivals in this game for the longest time, so I've got no choice but to give up and reveal my builds before I take my leave, haha. No, seriously, I often end up with at least five times as many fruit points—typically in the region of 3100-3500—as does the runner-up in fruit hunt. That is not to say, of course, that I'm the best Non-mazing player. In fact, I do think there are a couple of old school players out there who are better than me and just departed this game because they found that, well... it was full of newbies. Even though the SC2 section of this forum has lapsed into silence by now, doing a Google search on "sc2 td non-mazing strategy", "sc2 non-mazing td build", "sc2 element td builds", etc. will probably take the occasional SC2 ETD player here with an interest in learning new and potent builds. At least that's what I'm hoping for. After all, even if this game has kind of faded in popularity recently, it is still played on Battle.net, and I still run into players who have relatively high XP, but we've never played before, so even today, a few people may definitely have an inkling of interest. Since a topic search for the key words I just mentioned came up empty, I thought it'd be a good idea to maintain some semblance of activity and start a topic on this to show you guys two powerful SC2 ETD builds which hold up well even in Very Hard against rushy opponents, and of course, receive yours. I would really love to see some high earning 'rushproof' builds (2700< Fruit Points) for Non-mazing mode other than the two strategies I'm going to disclose. Adjustments to my suggested guides are also welcome. 1. 'All Right' (ART) build – 2900 - 3200 Fruit Points (Very Hard) (for ETD version 1.50) First of all, this is a build that I have developed myself. I had never seen anyone else do this build before me. I did see similar builds but those did not include key elements that mine does, such as Mire Towers, and more importantly, NONE of them were done in Very Hard so those had significantly lower Fruit Points. So, as far as I know, this is a pioneering strategy. So, Artillery Towers. My all time favorites... I've been playing this decent arcade game for a long time now, and one thing I've definitely picked up on is that Artillery Towers (Level 3 Earth + Dark) are unrivalled asskickers. I mean, with all the high range and damage they attack with—compared to virtually ALL the other triple-element towers—, it would hardly be a misnomer to call these beasts OP. Of course, in order to add more oomph to these Odin wannabes, you need to amplify their damage. To this end, it's best to support your Artilleries with Factories (Level 3 Earth + Fire) as these fully upgraded support towers almost DOUBLE their target's damage (90% increase)! That's why I've dubbed this build "All Right" - you max out every element at the Elemental Summoning Center on the right side, i.e. Dark, Fire, Earth, and put most of the Artilleries on the Right wing. But that's not the whole story. You want to invest two gases into ONE of the elements on the left - which should be either Water or Nature (I'm leaning more towards Water) to slow down and weaken the creeps with either a Mire/Corrosion (if you pick Water) or a Barb/Jinx (if you go Nature) combo. But, at the end of the day, this build relies primarily on Artilleries. For a replay and a detailed sketch, see the attached files. Note: Actually, I already posted my best results (approx. 3900 FP's) in a replay somewhere on this forum one or two years ago doing this very build, but, as luck would have it, a recent patch update from Blizzard has rendered it unwatchable. That's one of the reasons why I've put the build orders down in Notepad. But to be fair, I don't really mind that because I'm not really a fan of the idea of contesting the best fruit hunter award in single player mode, anyway. It just takes the challenge out of it. You need competition. You need that extra bit of pressure to be playing under and reacting to stuff when needed. And given that this game will only save your points and XP's if you do have rivals, I'm pretty sure that's what the game developers had in mind, too. 2. 'All Elements with Particle Field (AEPF)' build – up to 3780 Fruit Points (and possibly more)! (Very Hard) (for ETD version 1.50) I've only recently started to work on this strategy so it could definitely use some (major) improvements. Of course, I hasten to add I have NOT developed this strategy all by myself. Far from it. The ideas of buffing my towers with Well Towers at the end, building Wealth Towers and selling them at a later stage, as well as hovering my Particle Field over the Fruits all throughout the course (heck, I didn't even know you can move that thing!) while torturing them with Occult Towers are all something I've picked up from other players. My own contributions to this build—which increased the Fruit Points scored— include the use of my favorite spell-casting towers, the Mire & Corrosion duo on the classic Right wing combined with EVERY kind of offensive spell towers (Barb, Jinx, Incantation, and even Nova and Glacial!) that you can build out of the elements secured, the aggressive Flamethrower/Runic/Laser opening, the efficient positioning and use of Masquerade Towers. To be fair, I have seen a couple of decent Runic/Spellcasting combo builds from players that scored over 2700, but those were either done in Single Player or in a light competitive match with no serious rushers at all. So, I've made this build rushproof. So rushproof, in fact, that you can actually make it to the Fruits without losing a single life AND still hit 3500+ Fruit Points, no matter how hard your opponents are trying to be on you! The highest Fruit Points I've achieved with this build was 3780, although I'm almost certain that there is a way to squeeze even more out of it. I haven't done too much research on the positioning of the towers or figuring out ways to save as much money as possible. That's something I'll leave for other keen fruit hunters to find out. I've uploaded a scheme for this build (without annotations), too, as well as 2 replays demonstrating its use. About the replays: 1. ETD_ART_3132FP_vs_rush 'All Right' build – Very Hard – 44 lives and 3132 Fruit Points against a very rushy opponent (Light Pink) who put amplified Occult, Flamespewer and Pure Earth at the spawning point, trying to put others through the mill. Or maybe I provoked him with my opening, haha. 2. ETD_AEPF_3708FP_vs_rush 'AEPF' build – Very Hard – 46 lives and 3708 FP's against a heavy rusher (Purple) who placed amplified Electricity/Voltage/Potential Towers [F+L] at the spawning point. But I always fight fire with fire (quite literally) so I put a 'rushy' Flamethrower at the First Ledge to counter the rush, later accompanied by a Runic and a Laser. 3. ETD_AEPF_flawless_3051FP_vs_allinrush 'AEPF' build – Very Hard – 50 lives and 3051 FP's against an all in rusher (Red) who put even more amplified Potential Towers at the spawning point-- with ASAP Factories! Killed every creep almost in an instant. If you are one for aesthetics and perfection and whatnot, and wish to see a Very Hard flawless run (50 lives) with a REALLY aggressive, rushy opponent on your back, then this replay is for you. Unfortunately, though, I only had a measly 3051 for this one as the positioning of my spell-casting towers was rather poor. (Could have got like 3780 out of it!) Anyway, the guy scored 792 which isn't bad for a rushy Normal build. I think those Potential Towers could use some research. I can definitely see the POTENTIAL in them. So, I hope you guys like my builds. Unfortunately, I'm about to abandon ETD as there are more important things to do with my life, haha. But it was definitely a fun, smart and challenging arcade game, so thank you Karawasa, WindStrike and other contributors for your time and diligence in developing and updating this wonderful game! Sorry for the long post, and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you fruit hunters out there! kiyoona AEPF_build.txt ART_build.txt ETD_ART_3132FP_vs_rush.SC2Replay ETD_AEPF_3708FP_vs_rush.SC2Replay ETD_AEPF_flawless_3051FP_vs_allinrush.SC2Replay