The "I admit I suck and I need help" thread.

[Guest Timberwolf]

Alright, I'll bite the bullet and be the one that puts his hand of for the great many people that are struggling with the higher difficulties on the new public beta. So I present the "I suck at 4.0 and I need help" thread. Let's put the replay section to a good use besides posting high scores and also encourage some players to have a laugh at themselves, admit failure, and get a little assistance.

Here's a replay of me on hard, typically getting blown apart. I realize my tower management is in slow motion compared to top players but there's clearly more than that seperating me from total anihilation and that 370+ Ronalds on VH replay that's on here somewhere.

Help make me better.

Element TD 4.0 I admit I suck part 1.w3g

[Guest ma23]

lvl 25 nature2 elemental: at this time your nova is obliterating everything. all other elemental arrows need to be fire.

blacksmith built way too soon. it is a 500 gold tower and for it to be effective, it needs to support towers totaling up to 2000 gold (2000*.25=500)

same goes with the enchantment tower that was built later.

quaker is a nice tower but having only a single element for damage doesnt work unless you know the game well enough to prepare for all the 'bad' (in this case nature) elements. also, quaker is good because of its aoe damage, unless enough slow is used, it will do less damage than nearly every single target triple element tower.

for most of the games that use the aoe slow strat, the first triple towers built are the slowers (root, muck, nova), then the damagers (quaker, earth) and then the buff towers (well, blacksmith, voodoo). by then upgrading to lvl2 triples can be done in any order, so long as problematic waves are taken into consideration.

[Guest l2enegade]

heres me getting obliterated at lvl 55 on normal...

help wanted thanks in advance.

ele td lvl 55.w3g

[jolin012]

Here comes some feedback after viewing Timberwolf's replay.

lvl 1. Wait for interest timer before you build. In this case it's not of a high importance, but it's good to be used to waiting for the interest timer to bass 0 before you upgrade or build if you like money.

Another general thing is to never combine splash(cannons) with singletarget(arrows), unless you really know what you're doing. What it usually results in is that arrows kills every other creep, and when cannons get to fire it's not very effective. The most usual thing to actual favor the combination is if you're in lategame(not using arrows/cannons anymore) and not on random(can't sell towers). The thing is that you need splash for undead and singletarget for mehanical, and might decide to combine them to find a balance., however, in most cases you shall not combine them.

Hey, nice catching a leak at area 9 (refering to http://eletd.com/images/numpadlayout.JPG )there, it's a great place to catch leaks, you have both a longpass, and time to move the builder before creeps get there.

2. Why some of us build both at area 4 and 5 (maybe you've seen a replay of the standard arrow opening?) is because those at 5 are temporary. 5 is actually not a very good placement for an arrowtower, but they are only there when timer is not showing 0 and when there are creeps close, we sell them every now and then. However, for permanent towers, use 2pass placement like area 4, 3 or 6.

9. Splash favors alot on undead, becuase when they reincarnate they tend to bunch together. however, fire is strong so no leak. fire tower is the best thing at this nature undead level, both splash and strong element. My post here contains how to do the opening, and also which levels favors splash or singletarget. viewtopic.php?f=30&t=792&p=6851&hilit=cannons#p6851

11. Fast level incoming, you should use arrows here. Are you quick enough to do such changes?:)try playing at area 3 instead. a trick is to build placeholders, like preparing some normal arrow towers, and when previous level is over, sell the towers best for that level, and upgrade the new ones.

20. use nature arrows. use area 9 for catching leaks.

23. Nova can solo until like lvl 28, so sell the other stuff for some more interest.

25. Here's one of your major mistakes in choice of tower. Blacksmith has almost no damage, it's a support tower. this one boosts by 25% so you need to boost towers of a value at least 4 times as expensive as blacksmith itself. In other words, begin spending at least 2k on damage towers before boosting them with support towers.

29. mushroom is a good damage tower, but it belongs to a 2pass, preferably where it can rest it's ability between pass 1 and pass 2 (that means, try area 6 or 9.) but i smell that you're going to raise a quaker through that mushroom, in that case it's optimal placement (quaker damages creeps around itself) and mushroom is a good tower to upgrade through.

Oh, another blacksmith tower... need buffable damagetowers first.

30. with a damage like that i could figure you'd get problems this level. your damage is based on nova (light damage) and earth wave is incoming. ontop of that it's an undead wave. try to cover up for earthlevels with some nature towers, like a mushroom at 2pass placement. or just upgrade one of the blackmishts into a quaker (earth damage, but still better than light damage vs earth) adding some nature cannons temporarily this level could also have helped.

Why do you pick fire2 and nature 2? gonna build a flame tower at tier 2? or just planning not to build a dual tier 2? seriously, duals are good, trust me. try the mushroom tier 2,(nothing wrong with flame2, but it's a support tower, so a bit too early.)

31. Ah, quaker, good choice, and good placement. mushroom and electricity would be other good choices. blacksmith however, might boost those sucky arrows instead of your wonderful quaker tower - sell the arrows, at least don't keep such things in range of blacksmith tower - and your quaker will be a safe target for the boost.

32. this is one of the hardest levels, so you actually have to spend your cash correctly not to leak. how about selling those arrows, never having 2 blacksmiths, and build some useful damagetowers, however, uprading tha tmushroom into quaker would have been a bad timing, always check out next incoming level, in this case it's nature.

Didn't have time to watch more, but I think this'll be enough for now. gg

[Cisz]

Jolin is right, listen to him.

Only on this I beg to differ, if only slightly:

Why some of us build both at area 4 and 5 (maybe you've seen a replay of the standard arrow opening?) is because those at 5 are temporary. 5 is actually not a very good placement for an arrowtower, but they are only there when timer is not showing 0 and when there are creeps close, we sell them every now and then. However, for permanent towers, use 2pass placement like area 4, 3 or 6.

The explanation for this is pretty complicated and is more for jolin012, so feel free to go :

The arrows at 4, if placed and leveled corectly, will kill almost the entire wave. With just about 3 creeps of a normal (non-mech. non-fast, non-undead) wave killed elsewhere, a properly designed arrow group at 4 will work. But to get those few extra kills there is only area 5. At 7 or 1 the extra towers will combine their fire with the ones at 4, and result in often firing at allready killed creeps. If you place extra arrows at 4, they won't do extra kills, as they will either combine fire for an overkill or just partially damage creeps. Any two pass placement suffers from this. And the semi-long passes at 3, 9, and area "-" (upper right corner) will delay the finishing of the wave. So you need a long pass (so even weak arrow fire will do some kills), not in range of arrows at 4 (that is, not at 7 or 1), and not firing later than the arrows at 4. That's area 5, and only there.

But you still did it wrong Timberwolf. Not only did you not use a proper arrow technique at 4, you even placed cannons at 5, and even more important, far too much gold at 5 and to little at 4. I recommend you spend your money in cannons at 3 and try to relocate to arrows at 5 for the elements. Cannons won't work at 4 on wave one when you are playing very hard. Use this for reference:

I use cannons on 11 (fast) here, and jolin is right, arrows would have been even better, but I don't have to switch back to cannons again, and hey, it works.

As for the later waves of your replay:

Wave 40 - You have 3 quakers and one gold, so almost your entire damage is earth. Question 1 (5pts): What will happen on wave 40 (nature fast)? Treat elemental dmg as a weakness you have to cover. If you use earth, you need fire. More fire arrows would have worked.

Wave 41 - I'm surprised this didn't work. The quaker at 7 would have been better at 5, because the creeps don't get slowed properly up at 7.

Wave 43 - I'm surprised this didn't work worse. You upgrade nova (ligh dmg) right before a earth healing wave. The enchantment at 5 must have rescued you (it has the right dmg type to save your neck).

All in all your build suffers from one mayor problem: you use quaker for damage, which is great if you have massive slow, but you don't have massice slow. Either try another dmg tower that doesn't have to be played on long pass, or use more slow. One choice could be to get darkness for roots. You also get voodoo by that, which is a great support tower, and you can get some magic towers to place at 4 or 3 or 9 (with increasing safety).

@l2enegade - I have no time left tonight, I'll coment on your replay later. It might take some days though, as my term is starting tomorrow.

1450 Etd (4pb vh) cannons at 3.w3g

[Noddy]

Hi Renegade ,

I have watched your replay and found out certain commonly mistakes ^^

1) Are you training for the sake of playing with your friends(mulitplayer) or just training for youself only?

Why? : You build at around numpad 9 is not a wise decision to be. At multiplayer, you will definitely struggle as when you have not finish killing the creeps , the next wave comes in.

2) Getting water tower at lvl 8 is too fast ?

Why? : Prolly for you, you might feel is all right , but i would strongly recommend to dealing simply with just cannons and arrow up to lvl 20 to maximise your networth ^^

3) Leaked 6 lives from boss elements ?

Why? : If you had extra cash , i will recommend you to build arrow towers to kill boss elements. Furthermore , before you summon them out , are you sure that given your current towers , will you able to kill them ?

4) Does your first windstorm build correctly?

Why? : You build your first windstorm at numpad 6 , I would strongly recommend you to build at numpad 5. What if your windstorm suddenly switch direction to kill the unfinish creeps at the right side lane? You managed to cover up this mistake by adding in another windstorm which build at numpad 5 at the later part of the game

5) Are you sure of what your strategy is ?

Why? : Start by a simple build such as LWFN ? or EDWN ? You summon lvl 2 water and fire boss element out before summoning lvl 1 light element . LOL? Thats incorrect ! Always get slow towers first . i would rather categorize the whole of elements towers to slow , support and damage towers. Know what to build and how to build it. Furthermore , dun ever take nova as ur damage tower . They are slowing towers only ^^

Finale ....

If you really wish to turn good , you must really memorise the countering of elements well . For example , fire can easily kill nature creeps. This are quite important and set the different between a gd and normal players ^^

I post a sample replay for you and is a standard build of LWFN . Thanks to Cisz for recommending this build to me ^^,

As you see from the replay, i know what towers i needed . For example , gettting a headstart of boss element of fire , water and nature , i could form nova directly ^^

Slow towers : nova , windstorm , ice and flame

damage towers : tidal and impulse , pure water , pure fire

Try to build a pure at lvl 55.

After you see this replay , you will notice a great different in me and you is that , i dont build lots and every single towers available in the game. Just know what to build and how to build ^^

4.0 normal pick.w3g

[jolin012]

erm, I'm not sure i can agree to all that you say noddy:) for example "don't ever use nova as your base damage tower" It's actually a pretty good tower to start soloing with, can solo on veryhard to lvl 28, but if what you mean is later on that you shouldn't buiild more than one, if not for slowing a grater area, that's true (unless on random).

[Cisz]

Nova can be pretty effective. Consider a ldfn situation. Mass trickery and one nova vs dark.

[jolin012]

that's because current trickery is a bit like random mode:P

[Noddy]

haha ya , nova is just for mid-game only ^^