Hail/Comet vs. Obliteration/Annihilation

[dg86]

First of all, I do not believe the obliteration tower needs to be nerfed. Second of all...

Why is the hail/comet tower just so much worse than the obliteration/annihilation tower?

They both have 16 range and are allegedly used to kill mobs en masse. However, even when hitting one target, the O/A tower smashes for 500/2500 (7 seconds out of 9 unless you manual reload), while the H/C does 80x3/400x3 at .31 speed (but with a 9 second CD on a 6 second duration).

So if the obliteration just hits one target on auto reload, it does 500*7/9 damage~=388. The hail does 80x3/.31*2/3=516--assuming it's hitting all 3 targets. Now, if the tank even so much as hits a second target (and how often do those tanks hit 3+), it WAAAAAAAAAY outdamages hail/comet.

Now Karawasa says he wants to nerf obliteration...I say buff hail! It's junk right now!

[ele]

First of all, I do not believe the obliteration tower needs to be nerfed. Second of all...

Why is the hail/comet tower just so much worse than the obliteration/annihilation tower?

They both have 16 range and are allegedly used to kill mobs en masse. However, even when hitting one target, the O/A tower smashes for 500/2500 (7 seconds out of 9 unless you manual reload), while the H/C does 80x3/400x3 at .31 speed (but with a 9 second CD on a 6 second duration).

So if the obliteration just hits one target on auto reload, it does 500*7/9 damage~=388. The hail does 80x3/.31*2/3=516--assuming it's hitting all 3 targets. Now, if the tank even so much as hits a second target (and how often do those tanks hit 3+), it WAAAAAAAAAY outdamages hail/comet.

Now Karawasa says he wants to nerf obliteration...I say buff hail! It's junk right now!

IMO hail/obliteration is one of the key triple element high damage towers. I've tested some builds with triple elements being core up until wave 50+ and hail doesn't hold up as good as obliteration. In fact, mass grenade towers out performs hail tower with the same investment (1500 minerals). [build was tested on very hard after round 20]

I don't think obliteration tower is that overpowered. A slight nerf could be reasonable but hail is really bad =(.

A suggestion to rebalance could be adding a sort of manual cooldown similar to the obliteration or increasing the range of the tower. Although range here isn't that big of an issue as there is a damage problem. Obliteration has advantage of splash good vs clumped units, but hail only attacks 3 at max. Makes more sense to me to increase hail damage.

[Karawasa]

Now Karawasa says he wants to nerf obliteration...I say buff hail! It's junk right now!

I'm doing both actually .

[dg86]

Now Karawasa says he wants to nerf obliteration...I say buff hail! It's junk right now!

I'm doing both actually .

But why nerf obliteration?

Obliteration is perfectly fine.

Okay, fine, maybe drop its dmg to 450 down from 500, or maybe drop its shots to 6 from 7. But don't go overboard!

[Karawasa]

How do they feel in 0.69?

[dg86]

Just looking at the changelog, I will tell you right now that DELN will still be the game's #1 combo, no questions asked. Yes, obliteration lost 20% damage. Big deal. So where you had 4 before, you'll need 5. This is really really not the end of the world (thank you). However, looking at Hail, it still doesn't address the fact that the damage doesn't come close. You have 300/sec (assuming 3 creeps hit) vs. an obliteration that hits 2 mobs doing 800.

You should probably make comet hit 9 mobs instead of 3.

[dg86]

Tried DELN on hard in a pub game again. Aside from leaking the level 2 earth guardian once (doh!), I had no leaks the entire game, and 29 fruit kills.

IMO just going conceptually, when you have two long range to ultra long range high-damage AoE towers (Obliteration and Mortar), coupled with a fantastic support tower (deceit), a slow tower, and an amplification damage tower, and are building pure light towers for your 2 essences...

What exactly are you missing? That combination literally has no weakness whatsoever. Not to mention that early game, a mildew tower or two at the front door makes life so much easier, and those two towers then transition into invocation and spike.

On top of that, you also have quark, mildew, and life towers early game while you transition.

Overall, DELN simply misses no pieces whatsoever. If DELW doesn't perform in a similar fashion, then my only conclusion would be that the comet tower is still nowhere near as good as the annihilation tower, and the math of 500/.31*3*2/3=3225.80645. when hitting 3 targets, the comet tower does 1.6x the damage of an annihilation tower on a single mob. So if that annihilation tower hits 2 or more mobs, it's waaaaaaaay outdamaging the comet tower. (Aka hail vs obliteration).

Have you ever seen what happens when you put a 30% AoE slow tower on a U-turn? You get like 10 mobs clumping up on each other NPNP.

Result?

Obliteration tower wins mightily.

I can test that theory when I wake up, but the fact that you have hail/comet capped on targets, while the obliteration tower is simply capped on AoE means that the obliteration tower wins by flying colors when you bring a slow tower into the equation. Couple this with 16 range and 2000 damage a shot, and it's also capable of taking down elemental guardians--something which the hail/comet would have far more trouble doing.

[Karawasa]

The problem with increasing the max cap of Hail/Comet is twofold. First, it will not help the tower versus bosses. Second, it will probably cause lag. So, increasing the damage seems like the better way to go. Currently at 100/500. What would you guys recommend?

[ele]

The problem with increasing the max cap of Hail/Comet is twofold. First, it will not help the tower versus bosses. Second, it will probably cause lag. So, increasing the damage seems like the better way to go. Currently at 100/500. What would you guys recommend?

Maybe increase range to 22? or remove the cooldown period for the tower?

When only comparing hail vs obliteration.

Hail = 100/0.31 on 3 targets

Obliteration = 400/second on 1 target with splash.

Let see the math here..

~300/second x 2/3 = 200 damage a second vs 3 targets for hail

400/second x 7/9 = ~311 damage a second vs 1 target with splash

Looks fair to me lol. Only downside to hail is that it doesn't have a manual cooldown like the tank does. The damage is pretty even assuming auto cd for both and tank only hitting 2 targets while hail is hitting 3.

[dg86]

The problem with increasing the max cap of Hail/Comet is twofold. First, it will not help the tower versus bosses. Second, it will probably cause lag. So, increasing the damage seems like the better way to go. Currently at 100/500. What would you guys recommend?

Maybe increase range to 22? or remove the cooldown period for the tower?

When only comparing hail vs obliteration.

Hail = 100/0.31 on 3 targets

Obliteration = 400/second on 1 target with splash.

Let see the math here..

~300/second x 2/3 = 200 damage a second vs 3 targets for hail

400/second x 7/9 = ~311 damage a second vs 1 target with splash

Looks fair to me lol. Only downside to hail is that it doesn't have a manual cooldown like the tank does. The damage is pretty even assuming auto cd for both and tank only hitting 2 targets while hail is hitting 3.

This is exactly where your assumption breaks down.

Ever seen what happens when you combine tank with a spike tower? Those annihilation towers are hitting 5+ targets easily.

IMO the best solution here would be to give hail/comet a slight splash to hit overlapping targets such as if you'd manage to slow like 5+ on top of the same spot with a mire tower, for example.

[Karawasa]

Going to try 22 range on Hail and see how it works.

[dg86]

Hmmm...leaked a couple of reapers and a commando before fruits and got 23 kills on hard in a multiplayer game. Had like 40k I forgot to spend though >.<

Overall, it seems they're about equal considering the range. However, IMO, the deceit is the worst of the 3 support towers because of the issue of placement. In that it might instead place towers in a bad position when the other two support towers simply make your good position tower even better.

Also, hail/comet is a water type, not a light type--and I certainly prefer to keep it that way (just change the tooltip and tower description).

That said, for an equal duration of firing time, the obliteration tower is still far better than the hail when you factor slows in, because level 2 slows can cause 3-4 mobs to step right on top of one another, making the annihilation tower hit 4+ targets at once easily.

[dg86]

Also...hail/comet needs a manual cooldown restorer ala oblit reload.

[dg86]

Congratulations--you just killed the hail tower again. Water allowed you to compensate for its weakness with light towers (focused light/masquerade/laser). Now that it's a light tower, you need nature type damage to make up for it.

EPIC FAIL.

[Karawasa]

EPIC FAIL.

Discuss.

[dg86]

What's to discuss? Hail on water = weak to dark. Weak to dark = covered by electron, focused light->amplified->pure light towers. Hail on light=weak to earth=needs a nature type source of damage to make up for its weakness like oblit has mortars. With this change, you'll be extremely weak to earth-based levels because...

Light+Water=Ice=>Light damage

Dark+Water=Poison=>Water Damage=no strength against Earth.

Dark+Light=Trickery=>Light damage

Dark+Light+Water=hail=>Light damage

Now, we have several fourth element candidates:

Fire: still gives no access to nature type damage.

Earth: still no access to nature damage.

Nature: DLNW is a terrible combo since it has no slow or amp damage combos.

In short: by allowing hail to be water, you could back it up with all of your other towers which do light damage.

However, by making it light, you will get utterly wrecked on earth waves.

[Karawasa]

What's to discuss?

That's not what I meant. Rather, is this as big of a problem as you claim it to be. There are other triples that do not have access to the counter of their weakness...

[rockman]

So it has no direct counter to earth from combo towers still why not just get a high ranked pure water or dark?

[Chiquihuite]

However, IMO, the deceit is the worst of the 3 support towers because of the issue of placement.

This comment is interesting because other people on this board have claimed that Deceit is way OP. I personally think they're about even because L2/L3 Deceit's effects are a bit stronger than Well/Forge, but at the cost of the aforementioned positioning issue.

Also...hail/comet needs a manual cooldown restorer ala oblit reload.

What kind of effect would it have?

[dg86]

So it has no direct counter to earth from combo towers still why not just get a high ranked pure water or dark?

Because by the time you can get one, you'll have gotten rocked by leaking plenty of earth waves already.

And chiquihuite, the deceit towers are definitely the weakest. I believe they create up to 4 clones, and each tower can only be cloned once (EG you can't get a single pure light, mass deceits, and get a zillion pure light clones, though that'd be nice). So you get 4*100% from deceit, but from factory/fountain, you get 4*120%.

So with the other two, you not only get a better effect, but you get better positioning.

Right now, the reason deceit is more useful is that obliteration/annihilation+mortar is probably the single best damage tower combo in the game and no other reason.

But going back to hail/comet--of course it's an issue that all your damage towers (and your support tower!) are of one damage type. Otherwise why bother even having elemental properties for the enemies to begin with and not just make them all composite?

[Chiquihuite]

And chiquihuite, the deceit towers are definitely the weakest. I believe they create up to 4 clones, and each tower can only be cloned once (EG you can't get a single pure light, mass deceits, and get a zillion pure light clones, though that'd be nice). So you get 4*100% from deceit, but from factory/fountain, you get 4*120%.

Length of clone is 80 seconds at level 3. This means you can get 5 clones rolling at a time per deceit tower, plus a 6th for a few seconds. For 20 seconds out of 80 you can have two clones of the *same* tower (lol3pures). It's noticeably stronger than Well/Forge before positioning is considered.

[dg86]

Ah I see. But that still doesn't change the fact that if you're going for deceit towers, you might as well use obliteration towers since they mesh extremely well with earth, as opposed to hail, which due to its light type damage, meshes far less so, since if you try to cover its weakness with nature, DLNW has no slow towers and no amp damage towers. Torrent and flooding are two of the worst towers in the game right now, meaning DELN is far superior to DELW thanks to this one change.

[gwho]

And chiquihuite, the deceit towers are definitely the weakest. I believe they create up to 4 clones, and each tower can only be cloned once (EG you can't get a single pure light, mass deceits, and get a zillion pure light clones, though that'd be nice). So you get 4*100% from deceit, but from factory/fountain, you get 4*120%.

Length of clone is 80 seconds at level 3. This means you can get 5 clones rolling at a time per deceit tower, plus a 6th for a few seconds. For 20 seconds out of 80 you can have two clones of the *same* tower (lol3pures). It's noticeably stronger than Well/Forge before positioning is considered.

once 60 seconds is over a tower can be cloned again tho, right?

[Chiquihuite]

once 60 seconds is over a tower can be cloned again tho, right?

Correct. You can clone an individual tower every 60 seconds.