[Beta 7] Blacksmith/Well

[Guest Sancdar]

While Blacksmith does buff all abilities that Well does as of this beta, it's still a weaker tower. I don't know if this is desirable or if you want to make them the same strength, but here's why I think Blacksmith loses out.

For any ability that activates on a % chance, such as pulverize, it's usually better to have the ability activate more often than for it to do more damage. The more reliable a proc tower is, the easier it is to include in your build. That's why in 3.0, Death towers were pretty sweet in the early game because you knew they'd instakill almost every hit.

For any tower that does not have an ability affected by the two buffs, the two towers are roughly equal. Depending on the level, one will be stronger than the other because of the amount of over-damage applied.

The last part only applies to Tidal. In Tidal's case, it takes 90 shots to max out the AoE nuke - the ability has 10 levels, but the first level is just the description of the ability and takes 0 hits to reach. For the Tidal2 tower, 90 hits gets you a 103990 damage AoE nuke. 45 hits gets you between the 26840 and 37200 damage nukes. Well lets you reach the max nuke in the time it takes Blacksmith to let you get to the smaller ones. Blacksmith's doubling still leaves you between 53000 and 74000 damage.

[0rb3r]

I think the important thing is that blacksmith sinergizes well with its correspondent triples. It synergizes good with with gold and flamethrower where kills count, excellent with quaker and single earth as splashers, and just average with zeal. But of course if I had to choose between supporting a quaker with more damage or more speed, speed is way better.

Blacksmith is imo a good supporter, but well is way better. I find a good place for both in builds, so I don't mind if one is better than the other.

[Guest Sancdar]

New observation, Blacksmith doesn't increase the Beef Golem's bonus damage from his ability. That pretty much takes the Golem out of the FNEW build (Quaker, Beef, Zeal, Impulse, Well, Blacksmith)

[electronX]

One more small comparison, supporting that well > blacksmith.

Just take an example: we have round X, creep hp is 1000. You have a tower, it does 500-799 damage after armor, etc.

Let's use well first. What will happen? Your tower fires more often, so you finish them off faster. Nothing else.

Let's use blacksmith. Your tower will do 625-999 damage, so you need 2 shots. In fact, no change is noticed.

It's absolutely general, it's the cause of many losses produced by overupgrading (visualize one single pure darkness on level 1... would leak, wouln't it?). I learnt it when I tried the magic in 3.0 and as soon as I upgraded them to level 2 I died. Yep, they have shot, creep hp was around 2000, and I wasted the ability. This is the same.

So, if you have tons of small towers (or, more precisely, shots), well and blacksmith tends to the same results, but if you have fewer big towers, they tend to be completely different. Visualize a 3D graph where well has a constant percentage of 25% and blacksmith have a curve starting at 0% and tending slowly to 25% as creep hp grows and shot damage decreases.

It's nothing to do about it except buffing blacksmith a very little bit, but it won't really change the fact.

[Guest Sancdar]

That was my original thought, but they both cause overdamaging relative to the other buff depending on the wave/tower and it's hard to figure out how often each of them does it. If you take a similar example to yours, but say the creep has only eight or nine hundred hitpoints, then Well1 will give you a 25% attack speed boost but you will need 2 shots to kill each creep still - this is a 25% boost in effectiveness. Blacksmith1, on the other hand, will give you 25% more damage, allowing you to kill each creep in a single shot and giving a 100% boost in effectiveness. Obviously it's more common that creeps have much more HP than you do in a single shot, so the difference in effectiveness is harder to calculate. I feel that Well tends to give better results, because it always has the same effect, while Blacksmith's final result ranges from 0-100%, approaching 25% as creep HP grows relative to your damage capabilities.

So yes, this is a concern, but luckily it lessens as the game progresses.

I guess I should also give times where Blacksmith is better than Well.

- If you're saving the Tidal nuke at max damage to rush a level

- If you're in one of the cases where Blacksmith gives damage efficiency beyond its normal increase

- If your Beef Golem would gain enough mana to level in one shot under Blacksmith but would need two shots under Well, and is at an extremely low level

- If you're using Rage, since you've already got +300% IAS going, upping damage gives a much larger benefit

- If you're using Zeal on position 7/8 on VH to rushplay by keeping the attack speed buff between levels (IAS maxes at 400%, I believe)

That's all I can think of.

[Guest 1mpulse]

i think ias will always be better than damage =/

unless you change blacksmith to add a chance for a critical strike or something. something more than just adding damage for it to be on par