How do you win with EL : Quark - Electron - Atom ? (former DFL : Radius - Diameter)

[BlueTemplar]

Is it me, or not only these towers are hard to place, but also rather weak?

Here's my attempt to beat very hard using them as primary damage dealers in 5 : you can notice that around wave 45 they become ineffective (despite me just having upgraded them...).

Anyone managed to use them with success?

ETD _ Quark _EL_ Failure.SC2Replay

[WindStrike]

While I have yet to watch that replay (I just got my computer set up 30 minutes ago), I would like to submit proof of another issue with quark towers. Ayr and I did a maze mode match with random, and at wave 40, he dropped down 4 atom towers. That should have completely annihilated it - in fact, 2-3 of most Level 3 dual towers will kill wave 41-45. 3-4 atom towers barely even scratched it. See attached replay.

Also, I note a certain creep bug with undead in maze mode - when they respawn at 50% health, they're not affected by the wave speed modifier.

I request to have quark changed back to the old quark, as the new one (aka, old radius)... is just straight up hard to use, especially in maze mode. I could probably kill faster by spamming life and money towers.

Element Tower Defense _7_.SC2Replay

[BlueTemplar]

Quark should be easier to use in maze mode than in regular mode, since you can build a nice circular maze for the units to pass trough!

What was the old Quark effect?

I think I found what the problem is : Quark AoE is a LOT smaller than that big white orb effect would lead you to believe! It becomes especially obvious if you toggle unit health bars on. Check for yourselves or watch my test replay, you can see that when at the last (replay) wave I set Quark to 8 radius, it doesn't hit on top anymore, despite passing exactly on top of the creeps. (also, the first orb that spawns on the left doesn't do any damage)

So I would suggest increasing Quark AoE to be at least as big than it's graphical effect. It will also make it a lot more forgiving to misplace them a little bit. You might even need to nerf it's damage then, because then it will be more similar to Vapor which has only around 15 DPS compared to Quark's 40...

Another indication that there's a problem with Quark is this 1.27c replay, where I beat LEF Mentat (orange) at fruit despite him having a lot more money than me. You might also want to watch it to check if "Celery" isn't a little bit too powerful right now (though we're only on Normal, on VH that might be different...) when properly placed and microed : compare also me, pink, and Mikro, teal - we're both using WFN, but with quite different results...

ETD _ the trouble with quark.SC2Replay

ETD 8 FFA N Celeri win 440 pts.SC2Replay

[WindStrike]

While you'd be able to create a circular maze for them to go through, that takes up a lot of space, and they don't stay in that circle for very long. You get one circle pass and then they're on to the next part of the maze. Compared to many other mazes where you're able to actually fill in the circle and hit everything inside of it, it's pitiful. Add the fact that every creep has health regen and eventually moves at double speed and they're not going to stay in a circle for more than about 3 hits, whereas I can get more than that in the standard mode just by using the peninsulas. The old quark effect was that it hit everything inside of a 10 radius area. Not just orbs on the ends - literally everything inside that area. It was a little cheap for maze mode and maybe needed a little damage nerf for standard, but nothing compared to Vapor + Maze (which = haxorz if you make the maze correctly).

Speaking of which, Vapor tower does not do just 15 DPS. When you stack two creeps in one spot, each creep is hit by 10 damage, and then it shoots an aftershock that does 5 damage for each creep nearby. So yes, two creeps does 15 damage to each one. Three creeps and it's 20 damage to each. 4 --> 25, 5 --> 30, 6 --> 35... and so on and so forth. When you get the slowing, it is easy to stack 10-15 such that each vapor is getting super amplified damage due to aftershock.

"Celerity" (lol, no worries, I know multiple people that have called it Celery) is not very strong. If you're playing on Normal, every tower is going to seem overpowered. It's easy to win Normal on a handful of towers (cough, use flood and see for yourself). On very hard.... it's great for the early/middle rounds if placed properly, but otherwise it's nearly useless by the last 5 waves.

I have seen this issue myself with Quark (old radius) where the orbs are clearly hitting the creeps, but their health isn't getting scratched. While I would prefer old Quark tower (as it's actually useful on maze... seriously, about the only way you can make that thing work right now is to build 4 circles w/ triple pass. And you'd only be able to get 4 of them total), I suppose an attempt to fix this issue to give it another shot may work.

I'll check the replay out later, a little (very) sleep right now.

[holepercent]

Quark test replay. Enjoy!

('cheated' by starting in extra short)

quark test.SC2Replay