So Trendy, in regards to this new patch..

[Thaelyn]

Evidently you have no idea what quality balance is. Yes, app towers are more versatile, they aim quickly, have wide ranges and solid properties. Thats exactly why their damage should be less. Now you have a balance. With the same set of gear (a slightly worse weapon even), my harpoon towers deal more dps than fireball towers and are physical damage. However, fireball towers cover large ground faster, and hit moving targets and small targets better.

Now there's a tradeoff. Good balance in a game means certain things are better in certain situations. If they'd changed harpoon towers to just aim like apprentices towers, then sure, its 'balanced', because they're functionally similar - which is lazy and boring. Towers should not be equally desirable, one should be more desirable than the other when its strengths can be utilized. The game probably isn't there yet, as many people have stated, app towers still are more popular, but atleast they're not taking your route.

Your idea of balance is boring and lazy.

So you think Trendy's approach of saying "This hero has had it's time in the sun, now it's that hero's turn" is balance that isn't "boring and lazy"? You are, of course, perfectly entitled to not have a clue what you're talking about, but for the sake of discussion, I'll correct some of your unwarranted assumptions.

If they'd changed harpoon towers to just aim like apprentices towers, then sure, its 'balanced', because they're functionally similar - which is lazy and boring.

I defy you to point out where in my post I suggested any such thing? You won't be able to because it didn't happen. You're, much like Trendy, ignoring the fundamental design flaw with harpoon turrets that will forever make them inferior to fireball towers, even at identical or, often, better DPS. The trump card that the fireball tower has over the harpoon is in it's AI. Fireball towers don't consistently ignore targets within their line of sight in favor of blasting all their projectiles into the floor the way harpoons do. I'm not suggesting that harpoons function just like fireball towers, I'm suggesting that their use be solely about the players choice in how to place them rather than a deficient AI. Until that's done, it doesn't matter how many heavy handed nerfs or buffs Trendy deals out, the harpoon will continue to be inferior in most any situation., period.

Towers should not be equally desirable, one should be more desirable than the other when its strengths can be utilized.

Making towers equally desirable is not in conflict with making towers situationally more useful. You can have both, but you first have to have defenses that are not, in most every situation, inferior in application. Take squire and apprentice walls, for example. I'll grant that spike barricades are possibly the better choice in Pure Strategy, where there are no elemental immunities, but can you name one situation beyond PS mode in which this is true?

Now there's a tradeoff

The problem is, the tradeoff you have now is the same tradeoff you've had every time Trendy does their ham fisted nerfing. Using one class is superior to the others. In the beginning it was squire towers, then it was traps and auras, most recently apprentices, and now it looks like they're trying to start the cycle over again. I say again, that's not balance, it's merely shifting the imbalance around.

Your idea of balance is boring and lazy.

How would you know? I haven't laid out my idea of balance. All you have to go on is your short sighted assumptions and that you appear to have become so accustomed to flavor of the month style balancing that you can't see anything beyond it.

[Aked]

The app nerf is fine and the Squire buff is icing on the cake. If you think App towers didn't need some sort of tuning then you probably need your head checked.

Tuning yes, For instance, you take your car in to get it tuned when it's not working properly, brings it up to par..

This time however, we brought our car in and got an all wooden frame, hotdogs for tires, and a pink paint job, not to mention I think they replaced the engine with a celeco vision.

You need to read before posting, People are upset because of the amount they seem to think it's necessary to buff/nerf things. This is not tweaking, tweaking is small incremental changes to better performance, not massive changes that completely change the utility and purpose of heroes in one patch.

[Myster2]

Tuning yes, For instance, you take your car in to get it tuned when it's not working properly, brings it up to par..

This time however, we brought our car in and got an all wooden frame, hotdogs for tires, and a pink paint job, not to mention I think they replaced the engine with a celeco vision.

You need to read before posting, People are upset because of the amount they seem to think it's necessary to buff/nerf things. This is not tweaking, tweaking is small incremental changes to better performance, not massive changes that completely change the utility and purpose of heroes in one patch.

Wow really, thats odd because I use a combination of apprentice and squire towers and I don't feel like i driving a massive pink tired wiener mobile around....

[Aked]

Wow really, thats odd because I use a combination of apprentice and squire towers and I don't feel like i driving a massive pink tired wiener mobile around....

You must've gotten the Bratwurst special.

[Ryz1989]

Okay my current problem with the new patch is
First off it makes it a lot harder for newcomers of nightmare to get good items
second there is a problem with acquiring gears you need good gear to get a gear that is little worse than your current one so you cant get further in the game >.>
third the balancing went from OP tower app to OP tower squire but why balancing the tower like that if the hero themselves are a bit balanced out since app are mostly low hp and high dmg dealer hero and squire are high hp and decent dmg dealers oO now app is low hp and low dmg and squire is high hp and high dmg >.>
and last its not fair to balancing things out because the high equip gear are saying the game is too easy .......

[kurath]

So you think Trendy's approach of saying "This hero has had it's time in the sun, now it's that hero's turn" is balance that isn't "boring and lazy"? You are, of course, perfectly entitled to not have a clue what you're talking about, but for the sake of discussion, I'll correct some of your unwarranted assumptions.

Its certainly not boring. It forces re-adjustment and changes. Is it good? It could be, if they did it right (which has happened a couple times in the many shifts, though less often than otherwise). You accuse them of wild changes and yet refer to it as boring? Okay.

I defy you to point out where in my post I suggested any such thing? You won't be able to because it didn't happen.

How about the point where you suggested that they need to match apprentice towers in utility. Maybe you don't consider it that (although it seems hard to believe, since you say apprentice towers are the only choice for all situations). Then you're implying that all towers should be valid choices for all situations, thus removing their situational usefulness... Maybe I'm misinterpreting your statements because you're trying to make them as extreme as possible to exaggerate your point. Or, perhaps the time in that same post when you said tradeoffs don't count as balance. Which implies there should be no tradeoff, which should imply there would be no difference, which therefore implies that you think all towers should be the same. Again, maybe I'm misinterpreting your statements as one coherent point rather than just saying whatever you feel like saying to exaggerate your points.

You're, much like Trendy, ignoring the fundamental design flaw with harpoon turrets that will forever make them inferior to fireball towers, even at identical or, often, better DPS. The trump card that the fireball tower has over the harpoon is in it's AI. Until that's done, it doesn't matter how many heavy handed nerfs or buffs Trendy deals out, the harpoon will continue to be inferior in most any situation. period.

Now, firstly, I do agree that they have weak AI and thats generally a terrible way to limit usefulness. That being said, no, they aren't inferior in all situations and surprisingly, the damage buff has turned a few situations into their favor. I prefer this, even if the limiting factor is stupid to 'well lets just put a fireball tower everywhere'. I'm not saying this patch is putting it where it should be, I'm just saying its better than apprentice towers for every situation.

Making towers equally desirable is not in conflict with making towers situationally more useful. You can have both, but you first have to have defenses that are not, in most every situation, inferior in application. Take squire and apprentice walls, for example. I'll grant that spike barricades are possibly the better choice in Pure Strategy, where there are no elemental immunities, but can you name one situation beyond PS mode in which this is true?

Never stated otherwise. You seem to be more looking for reasons to complain then actually addressing what the thread was about though. There are a couple situations (squire bouncers are good spider control in the NM campaign range over a wall + tower), but thats not really the point. The original complaint was that this patch is a step backward, and thats where my original disagreement came in. With walls, you have 5 aspects, four which haven't changed - the one that had was HP, which is trying to shift some value into squire's favor with durability over the utility and DU cost. It likely hasn't gotten there yet, but again, you can't say that this is a step in the wrong direction.

How would you know? I haven't laid out my idea of balance. All you have to go on is your short sighted assumptions

I'll concede that, I assumed that when I was criticizing the OPs points, your critique of mine was somehow supposed to be related to the discussion at hand - the current patch, rather than just looking for a reason to cry about Trendy's general approach. I was wrong. Go make your own thread for that.

The problem is, the tradeoff you have now is the same tradeoff you've had every time Trendy does their ham fisted nerfing. Using one class is superior to the others. In the beginning it was squire towers, then it was traps and auras, most recently apprentices, and now it looks like they're trying to start the cycle over again. I say again, that's not balance, it's merely shifting the imbalance around.

That you appear to have become so accustomed to flavor of the month style balancing that you can't see anything beyond it.

So let me see... I'm suggesting that they're making the right move in balance by buffing the widely agreed upon weaker class and nerfing the widely agreed upon stronger class... and you're saying thats wrong. You do realize that in order to 'end the cycle' as you seem to say there is, they have to in fact level the difference between apprentice towers and squire towers? And they did that... and that's wrong, because you want to believe its starting some cycle of squire towers being the ultimate best again? Maybe they just nerfed them so now they're more balanced, except you claim they're not because they're permanently inferior due to their AI. So wait, then how were squire towers ever better as you claimed they originally were - the AI wasn't changed... Hm, its almost like you don't have a point. Maybe the numbers DID matter?

Yes, they may be overaggressive in their approach, but they've rarely nerfed something that wasn't the 'flavor of the month'. Guess what, in a changing game, which this one is, perfect balance will never be achieved. Things will change, certain things will be stronger, certain things will be weaker, thats how it works. There will ALWAYS be a flavor of the month until things stop changing, then it will just be accepted as it is. You're right, you haven't laid out your idea of balance, and clearly not to yourself either, which is why your argument is all over the place and again, just sounds like WAHH TRENDY RUINED ME. Again, I'm not saying they're doing a great job, but these changes aren't being pulled out of their *** like your statements are being pulled out of yours.

[Ryz1989]

oh another problem i got is the messed up the aura of the monk the counter goes down rly fast now in nm :/

[Ngamok]

End game content should never come down to "If you don't have gear from end game then you can't do end game content." Imagine if in WoW the only way to get into raids was to have the gear from said raid.

People are not complaining that NM is hard, they are complaining because NM is balanced around hackers/people with the best gear, and the only viable way to do it is to use App towers.

Looking further into it, people seem to be more upset over the fact that TE is still doing there large nerfs instead of doing things slowly, coupled that with the fact that it's next to impossible to get into NM mode without doing silly, non fun grinding (Doing the first 2 waves of NM ES repeatedly is not something I would consider good progression). I'm willing to bet that when all 4 Shards are released there will be a more natural flow into NM mode (remember, it's still in a test phase) but as of right now people are made because they keep getting pushed back in progression.

And what are they planning on doing in WoW? They are going to scale all the stats back because right now, when the new expansion hits, people are going to have really high stats because of all the years of having to increase raid gear levels so people have a reason to farm end game.

Trendy right now has stats on NM stuff going out of control. People with 2k+ stats?

[Vesper]

And what are they planning on doing in WoW? They are going to scale all the stats back because right now, when the new expansion hits, people are going to have really high stats because of all the years of having to increase raid gear levels so people have a reason to farm end game.

Trendy right now has stats on NM stuff going out of control. People with 2k+ stats?

That sounds more like an argument that TE needs to reset their entire system, which I am fine with. I don't mind doing 100dps if I'm fighting an ogre that has 1000HP.

[lazyluong]

For squire, the issue with their harpoon (in my opinion) is that their projectile speed or aoe width is lacking alot, that even the slightest change in mob movements causes a miss for them.

For Traps, their major weakness is their quantity in NM mode which require constant monitoring, and it repair itself too slowly.

Aura, lightning lacks damage in NM mode, and I find lightning tower far more effective due to the fact that they can attack target within the dark aura when shaman & archers are camping inside the spawn point. What they need to change to the aura is to increase the effects base on how small you shrink it from their original size. Why they haven't done that, still baffles me. Why I don't recommend this for traps is because a large mine and a small mine with the same amount of explosive power will cause the same amount of damage regardless.

Sure the nerf they did are annoying, but I find the problem cause by it is that NM mode now lack the necessary DUs to compensate for the changes. Furthermore, the major problem that persistent the most for NM mode is the fact that mobs and items become invisible starting at wave 10 due to lag.