My 2¢ on Squire vs Apprentice

[Mtg_Player_Zach]

That test sounds like your App had a good chunk higher stats then the Squire/Countess in TDMG/TRate. You are showing a 3% decrease in damage going from Harpoon to Fireball... doesn't sound anything like the results I got in prior comparisons.

Slightly.

It was ~2750, 2200 app towers vs ~2600, 2200 Squire towers. A very, very slight stat advantage to the app. Both towers were on a 3.2k dmg Buff beam and non-active.

Harpoons do their job....but they cost 6 du. Again, 5 fireballs and 6du of anything will pretty much always out dps 5 Harpoons.

It's all about getting the most out of your DU. Optimization.

[eymrich]

There is no price for piercing thru enemies in some maps.

I recently switched from fireballs to harpoons, around 3k turret dmg - 2.4k attack rate. Without harpoons i was unable to progress that much in aquanos....
Your fireballs hit only the ogre, while the others monsters are on the gas trap(my monk only had 2.4 tower dmg at the time)... after a while the ogre eventually die, but then the trash monsters get to the wall, maybe with another ogre behind. Then the wall get obliterated.

Switching to harpoons, i was able to actually kill ogres while also killing the thrash mobs, something you cant do with apprentice.
Never been able to go past wave 22 of aquanos, the istant i gave my app gear to the squire i was able to reach wave 24. Now(after a week or so of farming and trading) i'm able to finish aquanos nm hc mm survival with the harpoons. With fireballs, at last with my stat, i know i'm unable of such a thing.
Harpoons kill fwyvern when they are targeting the ogres, so in aquanos for me there is really no choice.
It's like having 6 du of harpoon shooting to some mobs and another 6 du of harpoon shooting the ogre... 12 du..
Fireball only do one thing at a time.

Also, fireballs tower shoots are slower, i'm wrong? That mean that the dps they do reach the place later, meaning that some of it is wasted(it will continue to shoot after the monster is tecnically doomed).

Another reason i prefer harpoons is about fps, if i use 3 fireballs in the same place with a triple star beambuff my fps literally reach <1 mark...(with some controller plugged in)... a more playable game for your dps character means a lot more than let's say.... 1 more tower in the map.

In aquanos, maybe just becouse of my setup, 1 harpoon is better than 2 fireballs in every aspect.

[Mtg_Player_Zach]

There is no price for piercing thru enemies in some maps.

I recently switched from fireballs to harpoons, around 3k turret dmg - 2.4k attack rate. Without harpoons i was unable to progress that much in aquanos....
Your fireballs hit only the ogre, while the others monsters are on the gas trap(my monk only had 2.4 tower dmg at the time)... after a while the ogre eventually die, but then the trash monsters get to the wall, maybe with another ogre behind. Then the wall get obliterated.

Switching to harpoons, i was able to actually kill ogres while also killing the thrash mobs, something you cant do with apprentice.
Never been able to go past wave 22 of aquanos, the istant i gave my app gear to the squire i was able to reach wave 24. Now(after a week or so of farming and trading) i'm able to finish aquanos nm hc mm survival with the harpoons. With fireballs, at last with my stat, i know i'm unable of such a thing.
Harpoons kill fwyvern when they are targeting the ogres, so in aquanos for me there is really no choice.
It's like having 6 du of harpoon shooting to some mobs and another 6 du of harpoon shooting the ogre... 12 du..
Fireball only do one thing at a time.

Also, fireballs tower shoots are slower, i'm wrong? That mean that the dps they do reach the place later, meaning that some of it is wasted(it will continue to shoot after the monster is tecnically doomed).

Another reason i prefer harpoons is about fps, if i use 3 fireballs in the same place with a triple star beambuff my fps literally reach <1 mark...(with some controller plugged in)... a more playable game for your dps character means a lot more than let's say.... 1 more tower in the map.

In aquanos, maybe just becouse of my setup, 1 harpoon is better than 2 fireballs in every aspect.

1. Trash mobs shouldn't reach your walls, that's why they are called trash mobs. If you have trash mobs at your walls, revise your build.

2. Fish come from the back side by the balcony. Your harpoons can't both hit ogres and those Fish.

3. A Fireball and a Proton beam will clear ogres Faster than a Single Harpoon.

4. Piercing isn't very valuable when you don't have anything but ogres on your walls. Fireballs are more than sufficient for Ogres.

5. FPS, is your only legitimate concern. I would suggest turning post-processing off and lowering your settings, it sounds as if you are running the game on a higher quality than your hardware can reasonably handle.

[Xengre]

1. Trash mobs shouldn't reach your walls, that's why they are called trash mobs. If you have trash mobs at your walls, revise your build.

2. Fish come from the back side by the balcony. Your harpoons can't both hit ogres and those Fish.

3. A Fireball and a Proton beam will clear ogres Faster than a Single Harpoon.

4. Piercing isn't very valuable when you don't have anything but ogres on your walls. Fireballs are more than sufficient for Ogres.

5. FPS, is your only legitimate concern. I would suggest turning post-processing off and lowering your settings, it sounds as if you are running the game on a higher quality than your hardware can reasonably handle.

1. This one is definitely true.

2. This one is partially true in most cases, but can be adjusted to make occur... it depends on how you are building that section. Also, jokingly, there is a bug that lets harpoons fire backwards at random. :P

3. Of course, you are using at least 7 DU in this case vs 6 (just like 5 DU vs 6 results in harpoons having greater dmg).

4. Piercing is value in the fact that he was correct about it clearing fish comming from the left/south section if they are engoldened since an aura stack won't stop them unless you also placed something such as an inferno trap there (depends on DU usage). Other then this, you are correct. In such regards, both are sufficient until you have in excess of two ogres at a given location in which Harpoon surpasses FB in virtually every case.

5. FPS is a concern for those with less then top level hardware. It is made worse, as given in the example, when playing split screen because Trendy... screwed up royally with how they coded the game game involving more then one camera. They are likely performing calculations when moving between coordinate systems or something else icky that is totally unnecessary. As MTG says, turn off post-processing/lower settings and if need be lower your resolution some.

[Mtg_Player_Zach]

1. This one is definitely true.

2. This one is partially true in most cases, but can be adjusted to make occur... it depends on how you are building that section. Also, jokingly, there is a bug that lets harpoons fire backwards at random. :P

3. Of course, you are using at least 7 DU in this case vs 6 (just like 5 DU vs 6 results in harpoons having greater dmg).

4. Piercing is value in the fact that he was correct about it clearing fish comming from the left/south section if they are engoldened since an aura stack won't stop them unless you also placed something such as an inferno trap there (depends on DU usage). Other then this, you are correct. In such regards, both are sufficient until you have in excess of two ogres at a given location in which Harpoon surpasses FB in virtually every case.

5. FPS is a concern for those with less then top level hardware. It is made worse, as given in the example, when playing split screen because Trendy... screwed up royally with how they coded the game game involving more then one camera. They are likely performing calculations when moving between coordinate systems or something else icky that is totally unnecessary. As MTG says, turn off post-processing/lower settings and if need be lower your resolution some.

2. Well, you can angle a harpoon/fireball to cover the balcony and also cover the south crystal ogres that come from the ramp. But you won't pierce fish and Ogres in such a situation.

3. Yes, it is 7 DU, but when do you ever only use 1 Harpoon. It adds up. If you, were to use 5 harpoons (conservative estimation, 6 is more likely) on Aqua that would be 5 DU you could have saved. With that 5 DU open's up options. You could add 2 proton beams and a reflect, a proton and an explosive, an inferno and a reflect, another fireball.....etc, etc. We can even adapt this to the above situation mentioned. If you have trouble with the trash mobs, you could take that 5 du and add inferno/elec/prox/gas and eliminate some if not all of the issue, eliminating the need for piercing (which wouldn't be as effective as splash for trash clearing anyway, but that's an irrelevant point).

4. Piercing could help with golden fish. But I have not seen ever more than 1 golden fish at a time. So, a fireball would be as effective as a Harpoon would be. There are also minions that would shoot the fish, in the event that it actually got that close to your walls which I would find highly unlikely. If you have more than 1 Golden Fish, it would seem that you have djinn that are not being cleared adequately. This has been aforementioned. Trash clearing should be addressed in such a case, which would involve the use of additional DU, that could be found by using fireballs.

I'm not saying harpoons are awful. You could make a build with them and do fine. But if you are struggling, fireball towers would open up a lot of possibilities to address whatever issues you are having due to the uniqueness of stats of different builders. It is my opinion that Fireballs are overall more useful and should be considered much more often (I think fireballs should be the standard and harpoons the exception to be considered).

There are actually a few places that I want to test the effectiveness of a harpoon vs a fireball on moraggo; where there are a couple places you can manipulate the enemies into corridors.

[Xengre]

2. Well, you can angle a harpoon/fireball to cover the balcony and also cover the south crystal ogres that come from the ramp. But you won't pierce fish and Ogres in such a situation.

3. Yes, it is 7 DU, but when do you ever only use 1 Harpoon. It adds up. If you, were to use 5 harpoons (conservative estimation, 6 is more likely) on Aqua that would be 5 DU you could have saved. With that 5 DU open's up options. You could add 2 proton beams and a reflect, a proton and an explosive, an inferno and a reflect, another fireball.....etc, etc. We can even adapt this to the above situation mentioned. If you have trouble with the trash mobs, you could take that 5 du and add inferno/elec/prox/gas and eliminate some if not all of the issue, eliminating the need for piercing (which wouldn't be as effective as splash for trash clearing anyway, but that's an irrelevant point).

4. Piercing could help with golden fish. But I have not seen ever more than 1 golden fish at a time. So, a fireball would be as effective as a Harpoon would be. There are also minions that would shoot the fish, in the event that it actually got that close to your walls which I would find highly unlikely. If you have more than 1 Golden Fish, it would seem that you have djinn that are not being cleared adequately. This has been aforementioned. Trash clearing should be addressed in such a case, which would involve the use of additional DU, that could be found by using fireballs.

I'm not saying harpoons are awful. You could make a build with them and do fine. But if you are struggling, fireball towers would open up a lot of possibilities to address whatever issues you are having due to the uniqueness of stats of different builders. It is my opinion that Fireballs are overall more useful and should be considered much more often (I think fireballs should be the standard and harpoons the exception to be considered).

There are actually a few places that I want to test the effectiveness of a harpoon vs a fireball on moraggo; where there are a couple places you can manipulate the enemies into corridors.

2. If you have two harpoons then it will pierce fish and ogre in both directions.

3. I actually only use 2 harpoons at south crystal, and 1 mid in Aquanos. No other harps. =x The rest of your point 3 is true though I feel it was poorly explained in your original statement. What you stated here becomes more prominent if you actually use several harps/FB towers in a given build. I don't bother others may.

4. Archers are somewhat of a fair point but during later waves gold fish can become so tanky that once they reach that range if they haven't been taking very significant dmg before getting to that point they are likely to survive long enough to 1 hit your crystal or 1-2 hit entire group of archers. This is the advantage of a harpoon in such a situation. At wave 27+ you should be seeing multiple gold fish on avg during multiple runs because djinn may fly way too high/become tanky enough along with fish that your aura stack will not out right kill them. Using an inferno with your aura stack can do the trick but this depends on how you have alloted DU. Of course it would take 4 Fireball towers to get even one inferno trap vs 4 harps... so its not an automatic fix to a given situation. It depends heavily on overall build.

I will have to disagree that fireballs should be the standard simply because they are inferior in most cases too harpoons. I have already given an extremely thorough explanation across two threads as to why this is the case. The only time to realistically use a fireball over a harpoon is when conserving DU. Even then this is not always an exceptional concept unless you are using a significant number of FB/Harpoon towers because it takes 3-5 of them just to get enough DU to do anything prominent for a single location unless trying to spare for reflects.

[Mtg_Player_Zach]

2. If you have two harpoons then it will pierce fish and ogre in both directions.

3. I actually only use 2 harpoons at south crystal, and 1 mid in Aquanos. No other harps. =x The rest of your point 3 is true though I feel it was poorly explained in your original statement. What you stated here becomes more prominent if you actually use several harps/FB towers in a given build. I don't bother others may.

4. Archers are somewhat of a fair point but during later waves gold fish can become so tanky that once they reach that range if they haven't been taking very significant dmg before getting to that point they are likely to survive long enough to 1 hit your crystal or 1-2 hit entire group of archers. This is the advantage of a harpoon in such a situation. At wave 27+ you should be seeing multiple gold fish on avg during multiple runs because djinn may fly way too high/become tanky enough along with fish that your aura stack will not out right kill them. Using an inferno with your aura stack can do the trick but this depends on how you have alloted DU. Of course it would take 4 Fireball towers to get even one inferno trap vs 4 harps... so its not an automatic fix to a given situation. It depends heavily on overall build.

I will have to disagree that fireballs should be the standard simply because they are inferior in most cases too harpoons. I have already given an extremely thorough explanation across two threads as to why this is the case. The only time to realistically use a fireball over a harpoon is when conserving DU. Even then this is not always an exceptional concept unless you are using a significant number of FB/Harpoon towers because it takes 3-5 of them just to get enough DU to do anything prominent for a single location unless trying to spare for reflects.

2. I'm not sure what you mean here. You can have a harpoon cover ramp and balcony, but you won't have that harpoon hit both ogres and Fish at the same time. You could have a second harpoon hit the West Originating Ogres/Fish, but that's like a whole different direction/spawn.

3. I'd be interested in specifics, I'm guessing one is West Facing and one angled to cover Balcony? Mid is obvious, North, do you use another tower type? Minions and proton beams for ogres? Fireball?

4. I've never noticed Golden Fish to be honest. So it could just be that my Auras are good enough to either kill all the Djinn, or my towers kill the Gold Fish before I notice their existence. I am not certain. But I don't see your point about the harpoon being better than the fireball here. The dps of a harpoon is not much higher than a fireball would be. A little bit, but not enough to be of any significance. When choosing to use harpoons, you are paying for the piercing effect. Which isn't useful versus single targets. Which is what the Gold Fish would be.

I think that when it comes down to fireball vs harpoon you are asking the question, do I want piercing or do I want 1 more DU, with the answer in my case being I want the DU.
Somewhat related, I have started using proton beams in some of my builds because of the ridiculous amounts of damage they do.

[Xengre]

2. I'm not sure what you mean here. You can have a harpoon cover ramp and balcony, but you won't have that harpoon hit both ogres and Fish at the same time. You could have a second harpoon hit the West Originating Ogres/Fish, but that's like a whole different direction/spawn.

3. I'd be interested in specifics, I'm guessing one is West Facing and one angled to cover Balcony? Mid is obvious, North, do you use another tower type? Minions and proton beams for ogres? Fireball?

4. I've never noticed Golden Fish to be honest. So it could just be that my Auras are good enough to either kill all the Djinn, or my towers kill the Gold Fish before I notice their existence. I am not certain. But I don't see your point about the harpoon being better than the fireball here. The dps of a harpoon is not much higher than a fireball would be. A little bit, but not enough to be of any significance. When choosing to use harpoons, you are paying for the piercing effect. Which isn't useful versus single targets. Which is what the Gold Fish would be.

I think that when it comes down to fireball vs harpoon you are asking the question, do I want piercing or do I want 1 more DU, with the answer in my case being I want the DU.
Somewhat related, I have started using proton beams in some of my builds because of the ridiculous amounts of damage they do.

2. Not sure if you noticed since you appear to use fireball towers primarily, but harpoons have a very wide targeting range. Of course it would take at least two harpoons to cover both ogre/fish points + the balcony direction. Can't do it with one unfortunately.

3. I have one mid facing west, and two south covering both ogre/fish entry points. I don't personally use a harpoon to cover balcony since my minions already do a fine job with an aura stack + inferno (spiders drop there keeping inferno up for entire wave). North left side only needs a few archers + 1-2 mages (no spiders) on a buff beam and a standard aura stack because not much goes that way, and no ogre if you have built far enough back and no player loiters there. North right I build right at the copter ogre entrance placing auras specially close too entrance + inferno trap. No fish ever gets out of the copter ogre spawn location and copter ogres usually die in there. In later waves they may get in but archers kill most before they get in and the ones that get in archer wall + spider (and two mages... further back out of ogre range due to squishy nature) to deal with things. Reflect wall of 1 DU for both mid west side (which also uses an archer wall... only south does not atm) and north east to block any web from spiders (that double dmg can completely screw up your minion wall). Due to low traffic north west does not need reflect.

4. My auras are only 1.5k/2.5k/2k+/2k+ so its possible but I would figure unlikely in later waves where they get exceptionally beefy hp. You are right in that the harpoon is not a good choice for its dps simply because its not that much higher. The piercing effect vs ogre/fish that are traveling in a line is what you want. Also do you play Aquanos in MM? There are a lot more fish there and you should see some gold ones in later waves unless you have some 4k+ stats.

I prefer the piercing effect because I already have enough DU in most maps thanks to minions. In the maps I do need to spare a few extra DU I will use fireball towers (Morrago would be a good example, imo). Then again in most cases I simply don't gain much spare DU by choosing FB over Harps because I don't use many of either in the first place (usually 3 or less in every map, exluding Throne Room/Royal Gardens/Glitter/Summit/Talay because of how linear/wide open they are). In regards to proton beams they do offer great DPS for a tiny bit of DU. I would have to say, however, that the DPS isn't THAT notable. It is comparable to the Fireball vs Harpoon DPS issue when using 3 (2DU) proton beams on a buff beam vs a Harpoon on buff beam. The damage difference is not significant and the main advantage of proton would be if you have 2-4 DU to spare for dealing with ogres after all other DU has been spent on the map. One of the cool things about proton beams I think is how long they last unlike their similar counter part, proxy trap.

[Mtg_Player_Zach]

2. Not sure if you noticed since you appear to use fireball towers primarily, but harpoons have a very wide targeting range. Of course it would take at least two harpoons to cover both ogre/fish points + the balcony direction. Can't do it with one unfortunately.

3. I have one mid facing west, and two south covering both ogre/fish entry points. I don't personally use a harpoon to cover balcony since my minions already do a fine job with an aura stack + inferno (spiders drop there keeping inferno up for entire wave). North left side only needs a few archers + 1-2 mages (no spiders) on a buff beam and a standard aura stack because not much goes that way, and no ogre if you have built far enough back and no player loiters there. North right I build right at the copter ogre entrance placing auras specially close too entrance + inferno trap. No fish ever gets out of the copter ogre spawn location and copter ogres usually die in there. In later waves they may get in but archers kill most before they get in and the ones that get in archer wall + spider (and two mages... further back out of ogre range due to squishy nature) to deal with things. Reflect wall of 1 DU for both mid west side (which also uses an archer wall... only south does not atm) and north east to block any web from spiders (that double dmg can completely screw up your minion wall). Due to low traffic north west does not need reflect.

4. My auras are only 1.5k/2.5k/2k+/2k+ so its possible but I would figure unlikely in later waves where they get exceptionally beefy hp. You are right in that the harpoon is not a good choice for its dps simply because its not that much higher. The piercing effect vs ogre/fish that are traveling in a line is what you want. Also do you play Aquanos in MM? There are a lot more fish there and you should see some gold ones in later waves unless you have some 4k+ stats.

I prefer the piercing effect because I already have enough DU in most maps thanks to minions. In the maps I do need to spare a few extra DU I will use fireball towers (Morrago would be a good example, imo). Then again in most cases I simply don't gain much spare DU by choosing FB over Harps because I don't use many of either in the first place (usually 3 or less in every map, exluding Throne Room/Royal Gardens/Glitter/Summit/Talay because of how linear/wide open they are). In regards to proton beams they do offer great DPS for a tiny bit of DU. I would have to say, however, that the DPS isn't THAT notable. It is comparable to the Fireball vs Harpoon DPS issue when using 3 (2DU) proton beams on a buff beam vs a Harpoon on buff beam. The damage difference is not significant and the main advantage of proton would be if you have 2-4 DU to spare for dealing with ogres after all other DU has been spent on the map. One of the cool things about proton beams I think is how long they last unlike their similar counter part, proxy trap.

2. I believe we are on the same page here. I think I know what you mean.

3. I use this with slight modifications. http://ddplanner.com/?l=8482,zachs-n...solo-clearable There are a few tweaks I have made, but I haven't updated the planner. It's got the basic idea and fireball positions right though.

4. My auras are like 1.6k/2.1k/2k/2k. The rest of my stats range from low-mid 2k to low 3k. Fireballs are like 3k/2.2k I think. And yes, I always play on Mix Mode.

I could tweak my build a bit, I might do that and test it with lower stats just as a helpful thing to share with other people, but I don't play that much.

And, I would use proton beams to supplement my primary dps tower, not replace.

[CrzyRndm]

Well atleast this thread was a good read today

Xengre, sometimes your ideas on the pathing just dont apply. FB's keep ogres tagged in rather a nice radius, while I can't say harps will always do the same. This is especially true on Sky city with just the pure numbers of ogres that can stack up, but also applies in quite a few other locations.

Secondly, I suspect we are all using >2.5k builders. At this point, does it really matter what tower you use in the majority of cases, given that summons completely terrorize ogres/fyverns/etc. I know I used a solo MMT on Morrago yesterday with no issues...

Lastly, DPS difference between the two towers is minimal after the last buff. Like maybe 5-10% minimal.

The choice is completely situational, and one is most certainly not 100% > than the other.