The reason why Apprentice seems to be nerfed more then 15% (possibly a malfunction)

[domistroy]

Dear Trendy,

I do not know if it is intended to work as it does now but I think that it might be a malfunction.

All these tests have been done with fully upgraded towers, both in the tavern and on nightmare (mistymire).

Because I couldn't understand how the DPS of a fire tower (from Apprantice) and a harpoon tower (from countess) could give equal DPS in the tavern, but differ so much when playing on nightmare I started to wonder.

So I started to do a little test:

I build a fire tower and a harpoon tower in both the tavern and a nightmare map (mistymire) and these were the results.

Apprantice
On nightmare with 1373 Tower damage using the fire tower .
while playing on apprentice 24444 Damage
Not playing on Apprentice 18397 Damage

Not on nightmare with 1373 Tower damage using the fire tower .
While playing on apprentice 15042 Damage
Not playing on Apprentice 11310 Damage

Multiplier from normal to nightmare:
While playing on Apprantice 162.50%
Not playing on Apprantice 162.66%

Countess
On Nightmare with 1311 Tower damage using the harpoon tower.
While playing on Countess 55937 Damage
Not playing on Countess 42059 Damage

Not on Nightmare with 1311 Tower damage using the harpoon tower.
While playing on Countess 21514 Damage
Not playing on Countess 16176 Damage

Multiplier from normal to nightmare:
While playing on Countess 260.00%
Not playing on countess 260.00%

so im not looking at the fire rate of the towers but purely there damage, and it's very clear that a countess (or squire) tower gets a higher multipier then an Apprantice.
twice the damage if im correct.

I haven't tested it with any other towers but non the less it does seem to be a little odd.
This really does explain the difference in damage (not just a 15% nerf, and not because the apprentice guardian has been nerfed either).

Added 2/23/2012
Someone mentioned something about the nerf not lowering the apprantice damage by a flat 15% but lowering the damage ramp by 15% exponentially.
If I understand this correct this change was made to the normal towers (and not only on nightmare) so the multiplier from normal games to nightmare games should be similar to that of the squire/countess?

Added 2/23/2012
So I wanted to test if having less tower damage stats would give a different multiplier so I did the following.

Playing nightmare on apprantice using the fire tower with 511 tower damage stats.
while playing on the apprentice 14337 Damage

Playing in the tavern on apprantice using the fire tower with 511 tower damage stats.
while playing on the apprentice 8822 Damage

Multipler from normal to nightmare:
162.51%

Added 2/25/2012
I have tested it with all the towers from both countess and apprantice and the results were the same.

So this has nothing to do with the ammount of tower stats you have, the exponential damage ramp nerf is effecting the normal towers and the multiplier from normal to nightmare should be similar to that of the countess / squire.

Could anyone from Trendy comment on this?

Thanks in advance,

Yours truly,

Domistroy

[ihearthawthats]

"Apprentice Towers Exponential Damage Ramp reduced by 15%" =/= damage nerfed by 15%

depending if your tower attack stat is high or low will affect how much % your tower damage is nerfed by.

[Miv]

Not sure I understand your charts, but my personal testing with (roughly. since I can't put a squire weapon on an apprentice) the apprentice dps in tavern was ~60% of what a squire does in the same gear (harpoon vs fireball), which is a big deal. But then we throw utility on the table, harpoon's pierce is way more valuable than fireballs splash even after we negate all the restance with a darkness trap (Lets not even get into DU costs).

[nsih197]

it was a 15% reduction of the damage ramp not a flat reduction to the damage.

at lower tower damage stats the difference in damage is <5%
at over 1000 tower damage the difference can be between 25-50%
if you got into the tens on 1000's it would be over 50% weaker than otherwise

[domistroy]

I see, well that's a shame.
Still don't quite understand the term "damage ramp" gues I'll have to look it up :P
because in the patch notes it doesn't state "only on nightmare" so if the damage has been lowered in the normal games the multiplier from normal to nightmare should be the same as the squire/countess?

if in some way that's not the case I hope that this will be changest somewhere along the line ;)

thanks for the replies guys.

And Miv, I have tested the DPS of the harpoon and fireball tower, they where both near the 134.000DPS (while being boosted by my APP guard). they did not do the same damage per hit (fireball tower hits weaker but shoots faster) so in the end it evens out pretty well.

This test I did was to show that the damage multiplier from normal to nightmare is really different for the apprantice compared to the squire, the towers of a squire/countess get a 260% boost while the apprentice only gets a 160% boost (give or take).

[Miv]

i was testing with 3 stared towers, maybe that's why I saw such a huge diff in tavern dps.

[LightningMcLordi]

I've testet the difference in Tower Damage between nightmare and non Nightmare with non Upgraded Towers on Deeper Well. The Results were:

Apprentice Towers:
Damage Increased by 62,5%
HP Increase by 62,5%
Range and Attack Rate stay the same

Squire Towers:
Damage Increase by 160%
Health Increase by 62,5%
Range and Attack Rate stay the same

Huntress Traps:
Max Detonations reduced by 25%
Trap Duration Reduced by 10-14%
Damage, Range, Reset Time Activation Range and Attack Rate stay the same

Monk Auras:
Range reduced by 30%
Damage reduced by 25%
Health Reduced by 67%
Attack Rate stays the same

The Table I used to calculate http://www.2shared.com/file/p65XWKZl/Dungeon_Defenders_tower_Stats_.html

[Khift]

I've testet the difference in Tower Damage between nightmare and non Nightmare with non Upgraded Towers on Deeper Well. The Results were:

Apprentice Towers:
Damage Increased by 62,5%
HP Increase by 62,5%
Range and Attack Rate stay the same

Squire Towers:
Damage Increase by 160%
Health Increase by 62,5%
Range and Attack Rate stay the same

Huntress Traps:
Max Detonations reduced by 25%
Trap Duration Reduced by 10-14%
Damage, Range, Reset Time Activation Range and Attack Rate stay the same

Monk Auras:
Range reduced by 30%
Damage reduced by 25%
Health Reduced by 67%
Attack Rate stays the same

The Table I used to calculate http://www.2shared.com/file/p65XWKZl/Dungeon_Defenders_tower_Stats_.htmlI look at these numbers and all I can do is shake my head. It really is clear that Trendy has absolutely no idea what it is doing with regards to balance. You give one class a 160% increase in damage, one a 60% increase, one no increase, and one a 25% decrease. And then you wonder why the 160% class is all people use. I just don't get it. I really don't.

[Malibu Stacey]

Apprentice Towers:
Damage Increased by 62,5%
HP Increase by 62,5%
Range and Attack Rate stay the same

Squire Towers:
Damage Increase by 160%
Health Increase by 62,5%
Range and Attack Rate stay the same


This is just a massive facepalm. Factor in the lack of elemental damage types on squire towers plus the pierce of ballistas & it's double facepalm territory. No wonder ballistas chew through Ogres on NM SV Mistymire like a hot knife through butter.

[GANJiN]

Please remember the Harpoon uses more DU and the fireball tower does AOE damage.

[Malibu Stacey]

Please remember the Harpoon uses more DU and the fireball tower does AOE damage.

Please remember the Harpoon pierces multiple targets and also has no element type hence damages all monsters it hits equally at range, no magic blockade or darkness trap necessary.

[Patchouli Knowledge]

Also, the Fireball AoE damage is very poor in comparison as the harpoon deals full damage to everything it pierces, while the Fireball AoE damage is proportional to how far away the other monsters are from the target. Additionally if it happens to hit a Fire Element monster, not only the Fire Element monster itself, but ALL the other monsters in AoE range, take 0 damage.

[DrayGon777]

By the same token, from my understanding of the tower roles, I thought that the Apprentice towers would be the weaker yet higher damage towers while sqire towers deal less but non-typed damage and last a lot longer. I'm guessing this isn't actually supposed to be the case anymore so that leads me to wonder what apprentice towers are good for besides faster attack rates.

[ihearthawthats]

By the same token, from my understanding of the tower roles, I thought that the Apprentice towers would be the weaker yet higher damage towers while sqire towers deal less but non-typed damage and last a lot longer. I'm guessing this isn't actually supposed to be the case anymore so that leads me to wonder what apprentice towers are good for besides faster attack rates.
well magic blockades are better than spike blockades. mm's are cheaper and can be more reliable for hitting spiders and other small monsters.

[domistroy]

We know that when you put them up against eachother that the harpoon cost 1 more DU but that doesn't mean it should get a much higher multiplier.

Harpoon:
The physical damage of the harpoon (as mentioned by Malibu Stacey) + the piercing abillity of the harpoon means it can hit alot of targets, it doesn't have to worry about immunities and the piercing works for 12 enemies and does 100% damage (it doesn't get less after hitting more targets).

add the much higher damage multiplier and you can understand that that little 1 DU is nothing compared to all the extra BUFF you get compared to a fire tower.

Fire tower:
While a fire tower cost 5 DU (1 less then harpoon) and does aoe damage does not mean it's in anyway even, mobs can have immunities so you will have to either USE darkness traps to be able to kill them before they hit your magic barricades (especially for kobolds) or you let them hit your magic barricades so that there immunities are removed so that your towers can start to kill it.

The AOE damage is no where near the same as the piercing of the harpoon, AOE damage doesn't do the full damage of the bolt and mobs can be immune (unless using a darkness trap which is ofc handy in any situation :P but non the less ^^,).
also the ammount of targets your aoe can hit is (most of the time) far less then what a harpoon will hit especially if you place them right.

and then there is the damage multiplier of only 162% compared to the 260% of the harpoon tower.

Ow I now see that where was a second page with new replies xD sorry about this post because you guys brought up all the points I wanted to mention aswell.

Greetz, Domistroy

[DrayGon777]

Harpoon:
The physical damage of the harpoon (as mentioned by Malibu Stacey) + the piercing abillity of the harpoon means it can hit alot of targets, it doesn't have to worry about immunities and the piercing works for unlimited enemies and does 100% damage (it doesn't get less after hitting more targets).

While you are correct on most points, the Harpoon was changed to limit the number of targets it could pierce. Harpoons pierce up to 12 targets. Granted, that may still seem like it's unlimited, and likely still hits more targets at full damage that the fireball tower likely will hit with it's diminished damage from point of impact. Figured it should at least be mentioned to avoid false info going around.

[domistroy]

Dear Dray,

I've edited my post with your information, thanks for sharing :).

Greetz, Domistroy

[\/4n!114 ][c3]

squire towers were bumped a lot for nightmare mode only, though even before the bump, they were more effective thatn app towers in any situation, because of the fact that they all do area/pierce damage and the fact that they naturally do more and non-elemental damage. its just that app towers are nice to use on insane and lower difficulties because their damage output is able to keep up with the HP scaling of mobs at those levels, and since their DU cost is much lower, you can put a lot of them up. 2 MM towers in nightmare is better than 1 harpoon because you can have two .08 attack rate towers doing 3.5k damage per shot, which is a good chunk of even some beefy mobs HP on insane.

the damage ramp exponential nerf basically means that you have to have 15% higher tower stats than you did before the nerf to see the same result, so, if before the nerf you had 700 tower attack and were seeing 2100 base damage on an MM tower and 6000 base damage on a fireball tower, you now basically have to have 900 tower attack to see those same numbers. but also, it means that you see less of a bump in the damage increase from upgrading the tower, although nowhere near as much.

with regards to the changes to auras and traps, there is no logical reason that the numbers are the way they are, with the sole exception of griefing players. there is no reason why the aura radius and hit points should be cut as drastically as they are, and there is no reason why huntress detonation counts should be cut as they are. huntress traps im willing to give a little bit of understanding on, and i can *possibly* be convinced why a radius reduction on auras was introduced, but there is no logical reason why there should have been such a huge reduction to aura HP.

but for all intents an purposes, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason why one archetype was given such a huge advantage in nightmare mode while all others were given such large disadvantages. everything else is 100% irrelevant next to this singular point.

[ManaCorporation]

....Non-Elemental Pierce > Pure Fire AoE anytime, anyday, anywhere. this is the very reason harpoon is 6 and a fireball is 5.

But I would take two MM's over one Harpoon in a lot of situations. (Spiders, small enemies)

[Dooky]

Do you guys even use MMs against Spiders? They're garbage because they never stop Spider interference, and are particularly susceptible to webbing themselves, since they rely so heavily on fast attack rate. Bouncers/Prox Mines outpace them in use by a huge margin.

The honest answer why everyone uses Harpoon is the raw DPS of the Harpoon being almost double that of Fireball per DU. The only challenging component in this game is killing the high hp things (DEWs/Ogres) so naturally an imbalanced DPS/DU ratio is going to lead to an imbalanced prevalence of Squire towers.

[domistroy]

ManaCorporation

....Non-Elemental Pierce > Pure Fire AoE anytime, anyday, anywhere. this is the very reason harpoon is 6 and a fireball is 5.

But I would take two MM's over one Harpoon in a lot of situations. (Spiders, small enemies)

1 harpoon does 25% more damage then 2 magic missiles do , add the higher HP and in my eyes a harpoon is far better.
Place it right (behind the drop places of spiders , maybe even place a slow aura) and there is no reason to use a magic missile.

or place magic barricades as a decoy for the spiders to attack (at the drop places) or use a spike blockade that will also kill them (which has a lot of hp) or place a bouncer under there drop place which cost only 4 DU and does far more damage then a magic missile and maybe even 2 (don't have the data but im pretty sure it does) and it will hit in 360 degrees + the higher HP.
endless of options that are far better then magic missiles.

The difference in damage of the apprantice and countess / squire make no sense at all, as mentioned before the 15% "exponential damage ramp" nerf of apprantice towers was suppose to happen but the multiplier from normal games to nightmare should be the same for both tower builders.

This is how I see it: Test has been done on nightmare with towers max upgraded
Stats for both classes are roughly 1350 tower attack and 900 haste.

Tower MM
DU 3
Attack speed 0.08
Damage 6655
83187.5 DPS * 2 (= 6 DU) = 166.375 DPS

Harpoon
6 DU
Attack speed 0.27
Attack damage 55937
207.174 DPS

[ManaCorporation]

Bouncers can't move and can only cover one spider spawn. Sure it can one-shot spiders even up to W15 on decent gear. But as soon as it stop one-shotting, it's worthless.

A harpoon can be destroyed by ONE spider even with ensaure. That's not going to happen to two MM's, ever.

[Dooky]

But as soon as it stop one-shotting, it's worthless.

Not necessarily. They can tank the webbing themselves and still kill them easily since now it would be 2 bumps.


A harpoon can be destroyed by ONE spider even with ensaure. That's not going to happen to two MM's, ever.

Yep, that's why nobody uses Harpoons for Spideys. You'd be surprised how quickly MMs can get saturated and become completely useless though, throwing like 4k damage shots every 5s. If their shots actually stunned the Spiders, it'd be fine, but even under machine gun fire Spiders have perfect accuracy. Prox and Bumpers actually knockback stun them, interrupting their cast. I used to use MMs for Misty, alot, but after the App nerf, they do too little damage, too inconsistently, and don't really cover any more than 1 Spider spawn at a time, even if they're in range of multiple ones. Plus, Spiders still get all their webs off.

[\/4n!114 ][c3]

indeed. plus, you get a lot of wasted damage because MM towers have knockback on spiders, so they have to constantly be tracking, which means maybe one out of 5 projectiles actually hit them.

[FruitLord]

Seems like when my bumpers don't one-shot spiders, the spiders are aggro'd on the bumper and immediately attack them. So it doesn't matter if the spider is one-shot or two-shot

[domistroy]

Dear Trendy,

Not to impose but could an official person maybe post a reply, atleast to let us know if this is intended or going to change in the near future?

greetz, Domistroy

[domistroy]

With this post im trying to explain why the apprantice is weaker then what it should be and that a change is neccessary.
This does in no way mean that the countess / squire towers are in need of a nerf, they are the only builder that can make towers that are viable for higher waves (about 9 - 10 +) of nightmare survival / mixmode.

So just to make sure you guys don't get the wrong idea.

Yours truly,

Domistroy

[Myster2]

With this post im trying to explain why the apprantice is weaker then what it should be and that a change is neccessary.
This does in no way mean that the countess / squire towers are in need of a nerf, they are the only builder that can make towers that are viable for higher waves (about 9 - 10 +) of nightmare survival / mixmode.

So just to make sure you guys don't get the wrong idea.

Yours truly,

Domistroy

I'm glad you added that in the because I kind of feel an office space style "fix our mistake" nerf coming on....

[domistroy]

Dear Trendy,

I'm glad to see some changes for the apprantice in the patchnotes :D

But I still think that increasing the damage ramp of the normal towers is not the best solution, I think you should just give both builders the same multiplier for nightmare damage.
Non the less I'm happy to see something being done =)

Yours truly,

Domistroy

[FruitLord]

Agreed/signed. Please give the same damage boost to *all* classes. I honestly don't care if the game becomes easier for people, at least they get the chance to become creative and make their own builds using every class any way they want.