Napalm effect

[SandroSwordfire]

Hi !

I tried the napalm effect in a game, and it deals no damage. I tried it with the flamethrower, flamespewer and hero skill : the monsters get the effect, but they dont get any damage.

I tried in mazing mode, and I looked them run far from my towers with the napalm, no damage.

Am i the only one ?

[WindStrike]

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?

[Karawasa]

Done, done, and done.

[SandroSwordfire]

hm

I tried the flamethrower tower, the napalm effect prevent monsters from resplenishing life over time, but it deals no damage.

[WindStrike]

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.

[Karawasa]

I tried the flamethrower tower, the napalm effect prevent monsters from resplenishing life over time, but it deals no damage.

It definitely does damage but I'm curious about what the first bug you mentioned is?

[SandroSwordfire]

the first time i tried it the monsters recovered life over time with the napalm effect. When i tried this afternoon, the monsters under napalm effect were not recovering life over time, so i thought it was a bug, but its the same without napalm. One was in mazing mode, the second was not. Sorry, i was used to WC3 version, didnt know they recover life in mazing mode

[WindStrike]

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 damage
• Flamethrower (0.66 attack speed) - 1800 damage
• Ratio: - 2 : 1.8

SC2:

• Quake (0.66 attack speed) - 200 damage
• Flamethrower (0.66 attack speed) - 100 damage
• Ratio: - 2 : 1

To make matters worse, let's look at a certain support tower comparison.

SC2:

• Muck (1 attack speed) - 150 damage
• Flamethrower (0.66 attack speed) - 100 damage
• DPS 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.

[Karawasa]

Your initial math is off by a factor of 10.

[WindStrike]

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)

[Karawasa]

Say Flamethrower hits 3 creeps each attack. It will do 100+40 damage every 0.66 seconds. That's ~200 damage per second. Now multiply that by 3. You're getting 600 damage per second. There are obviously some assumptions made here.

Compare this to say Laser which does 900 damage per second. Given that Napalm requires the creep to die for full damage, it does seem a bit underpowered.

I propose 120 attack damage with 60 Napalm damage. That gives ~275 damage per second with a total of 825 damage.

[SandroSwordfire]

If you just increase its damages, it will be able to kill creeps itslef and will become a simple AoE tower with "sometimes" a bonus AoE damage, and it makes me think about the Quake tower, with a lower power versus single target...

I think this tower is a support, and its effect is really meant to make chain explosions.

Maybe you could reduce its attack speed to 0.33 and damage to 70~75(maybe a bit less), let the napalm at 40 damage/stack, and increase the AoE (tower and napalm effect). I know its a large rework, but i think it could make this tower much more interesting. it will deal less damage on hit, but place much more napalm effect, making it more significant.

[WindStrike]

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.