Diversity for Single Element Towers

[Gibble96]

I propose diversifying the damage payload structures between various single-element towers.

 

Currently the towers overlap too much.  There are Single-Target towers and Splash towers; 3 for each, and since the WC3 versions, there has always been a "best-in-class" for both the splash and the single.  Usually Fire outclasses Earth and Water; while the single target damage towers struggle to find purpose when they're nothing more than glorified arrow towers.

 

Adding minor abilities would also open up the chance to fix early-game balance issues: such as Dark Towers hitting for 260 damage against a wave 1 with 110 hit points (or something like that).

 

Abilities wouldn't be given to single-element towers for the sake of having abilities: it would just be added for those elements desperately in need of something unique to distinguish them from their counterparts.

 

Some ideas that come to mind:

 

Dark Towers - 15% Chance to crit for double damage; when a Dark Tower overkills a target, the overkill damage chains onto the nearest enemy (overkill damage cannot chain again).  This would solve a serious issue with Dark Towers wasting so, so much damage during the early waves.

Earth Towers - Instead of splashing, their projectiles could splinter into 2 half-damage fragments that strike new targets (Would function exactly like Drow Ranger's Scepter upgrade).  This would finally distinguish Earth as its own tower and not just perform as an inferior Fire Tower/Water Tower.

Water Towers - Maybe a bouncing effect?  Like 6 bounces or so?  To clearly distinguish it from Lightning Towers, it would have poor base damage, no damage decay on bounce, and could bounce back to the original target.  It would specialize in killing groups of 2-3 but would be absolutely atrocious vs single targets; and just outclassed in splash-centric scenarios.

Light Towers - Not sure range advantage is enough by itself; but I got no ideas at the moment.  Maybe the sheer range advantage in itself is good enough.

Fire/Nature Towers - Probably don't need abilities as they would each serve as a baseline for Splash Towers and Single Towers respectively.

 

I'm not necessarily pushing these specific examples: but I do want to see single-element towers distinguished from one another.  Right now we have 3 glorified Arrow Towers; of which, we really only need one to function as a super Arrow Tower.  As for splash: Fire just outclasses Water/Earth because it's the highest DPS splash among the 3, and within splash scenarios, range rarely matters once you properly set splash up with supporting snares.

[WindStrike]

Not sure the crit is necessary on Dark Tower, but overkill damage chaining would be very nice.

For Earth Tower, do the projectiles still splash? If not, it'd honestly end up a little too similar to Water Tower's bouncing effect. Speaking of Water Tower, it's pretty much Luna's bouncing attack, which is awesome. Though, that makes it a little close to Lightning Tower's effect, sooooo instead of bounces decreasing in damage, they increase in damage per bounce.

I actually would say Fire and Nature could use minor abilities, or else we'd still have a glorified Arrow Tower and a glorified Cannon Tower, and those aren't completely necessary, given those two towers are still useful for the first quarter of the game. I'mma just plop down some ideas here:

• Multi-Target: Unlike Hail Tower though, this acts more like Runic Tower's ability, in that it shoots everything within say 150 AoE of the creep (so by default, 3 creeps). However, all shots are single-target. Recommended for Water or Earth tower.
• Burn Baby Burn: Burns everything in a small radius around the tower, dealing damage over time. It's pretty much Nova without a Slowing effect and hits a smaller area, meant more for pure damage. Recommended for Fire Tower.
• Splash Kill: Tower is normally single-target, auto-attacks lowest hp creep; however, when it kills a creep, it causes an explosion, hitting all creeps around it. Recommended for Nature or Earth tower.
• Line Drive: Long range attack, auto-targets furthest creep, single-target damage to the primary creep. All creeps caught in the projectile's wake take minor damage. Can Attack Ground as well. Recommended for Light Tower.

FYI, I do really like this idea and would like to implement it, but it definitely won't make it next balance patch.

[Karawasa]

Thank you for this post. It's an interesting perspective and one that I agree with. I plan to have something like this implemented for our next major content update (end of March or so).