Fix Towers

[Luftwaffles]

Nerf is the lazy man's way out. This is one of many replays I have with a 'tower strat'. Although it is against pubs and is counterable, it is frustrating, time consuming to play against, prolongs the game and is unnecessary with there being gens.

Suggestions below. *s beside -s indicate suggestions.

- Remove tower building from workers (the normal and cannon ones).
*- Make it so that when a tower dies, a tower "base" (like an outpost "base") pops up where you can build a tower. This means towers can be constructed but repairing is still better and it removes the mid lane cheese.
*- Remove tower building altogether; make it gens, gens, gens.

[GeneralFunk]

Would remove the ability to secure obelisks further, though people usually don't do that. But then again, if people want to do that, Yak could implement the ability to upgrade obelisk control towers and/or build towers from the obelisk control towers.

[Discombobulator]

Nerf is the lazy man's way out. This is one of many replays I have with a 'tower strat'. Although it is against pubs and is counterable, it is frustrating, time consuming to play against, prolongs the game and is unnecessary with there being gens.

Suggestions below. *s beside -s indicate suggestions.

- Remove tower building from workers (the normal and cannon ones).
*- Make it so that when a tower dies, a tower "base" (like an outpost "base") pops up where you can build a tower. This means towers can be constructed but repairing is still better and it removes the mid lane cheese.
*- Remove tower building altogether; make it gens, gens, gens.

No.

[Ion]

Did you even bother to watch the replay?

Gens should be enough to secure obs. Building towers is just ridiculous. The lazy fix is just nerf their cost or their time or something; which I think is only reasonable if it meant towers were only being rebuilt (they take awhile, high gold cost, etc.) and not built at obs. It's just silly.

[Reaper]

towers are weak as shit

[Strychnyne]

Gen>towers because you don't get credit for the kills.

[Ion]

Gen>towers because you don't get credit for the kills.

Although I like gens a lot and always use them with my towers, you can last hit vs. towers and they are really great at freaking people out. They also do a lot of damage.

towers are weak as shit

Well I'm glad, I guess that solves the debate.

If you're not even going to bother putting together something meaningful so there's actually a discussion going on here, why bother at all. For the actual stats which people can debate if they want, looking at a UD tower it has 2500 HP, deals 62-76 hero damage and 27-32 piercing, with 6 armor (fortified).


*Another suggestion would be to make buying attack gens more worthwhile. They are good, but towers are better for unit kills and execution/replen/siege gens are a better use of gens.

[Ion]

Here's another replay where I play a much more competent, very anti-Inf team.

*EDIT: After talking with Dave, I think the best way to fix this silliness is to either:
- Put a limit on the number of towers available on the map (this is a maybe, not necessary but possible fix); basically so that you can only build one if you lose one kinda thing. This is just for longevity purposes; base fortification is meh in my opinion.
- The important suggestion is to limit tower building only to bases. Like how Obs can only be built near obs, towers can only be built near outposts. This means that instead of buildiing towers, people are encouraged to build gens- which are more fun anyway but are also actually destructible in 4s or 5s (unlike towers which take for goddamn ever unless your team is jam packed with siegers).

[Reaper]

Why change towers? Making them lose 800-1000 gold when they die is enough.

you can just crush them without much trouble, who cares?

[Ion]

Why change towers? Making them lose 800-1000 gold when they die is enough.

you can just crush them without much trouble, who cares?

How about if you watch the replays, so you see what I'm talking about, then you can post. Otherwise you're not helping at all. "Crush them without trouble" is a euphism for spending tons of money on mid and sticking your heroes there while mid gets +2 obs and can core whatever other lane they feel like.

Also, unless you're stupid, you tower mid with a strong AoE hero (I chose Inf cause her explosives are dope). It really isn't a big deal for an Inf, RK and DW for instance to farm the 800 and 3 crystal you need per tower. And if you were to lose one, it probably means there are tons of creeps bashing your mid just waiting to have explosives blown up on them = $$$

So no, I can't really find a way for you to be right here. : (

[Reaper]

Considering there are 5 lanes I don't know if that really matters.

[Ion]

Except Mid lane is the only lane with two obs. Either read and refute with reasonable examples and references, or please don't post at all.

Writing one line or two lines does absolutely nothing for this thread if all you're going to bring up are things you clearly haven't really taken much time to think through.

Other thoughts from people who are willing to either watch the replay(s) or have experienced towering is welcome.

[Reaper]

You just don't like my posts because I'm in disagreement.

I've backed it up as much as is necessary. Towers are expensive, and not that big of a problem.

[DarkNemesis]

If Ion had his way everthing would be easy to kill and all the tanks would die from repeated nuking from casters X_X

It's called termite jars, mercs, and or a sieger. Have fun learning how to kill towers.

[Discombobulator]

Multiple walls of text crit me.

[DarnYak]

Ok, I watched both replays. The first is a complete waste of time, I dont think the towers see more than 10 seconds of action the whole game. The second was somewhat more enlightenting, as a few pushes did get to the towers - but aside from one push, I'm not convinced it mattered either, as your team was working together amazingly well to defend that spot, where as red wasn't doing much to push. BP figured out how to deal with it late game (although he could have done better), but never bothered to go help with mid. And ultimatey you won becuase you guys made the game entirely about the 2 mid obs and both teams ignored the other 4 - 2 weren't captured untill very late, the other two wilderness obs were ignored (although i think blue finally capped one very late). There's no dispute that towers are strong - 800 gold + crystal should be. Broken though...

Currently, I'm going to refuse to do anything about towers. In the past, strats come out, they work, people bitch, I nerf them. I've always considered this a tragic cycle, although in some cases the counters were unrealistic. Here, I don't believe that's the case, so I want to see what people come up with instead. I know there's ways to potentially handle them - I can think of 3 or 4 off the top of my head, but I want to see how people respond first. Sort of like how I'm holding off a bit before nerfing the new obelisks (which, btw, I noticed was an important early game skirmish - seems people figured out how to deal with an early steal).

On other fronts, there are some things I did notice need nerfing - exec gens in particular, and maybe replenishment. Possibly even mines, but i'll consider that more when I relook at inf in 1.12e...

DarnYak

[Luftwaffles]

@Yak (important part, rest is zzz walls of text)

From what I've experienced in using towers, some of the best ways in countering them would be to play imba Roth (Spore Cloud -.-), BP (Phoenixs) or Inf (Smoke Cloud + Sabo). Now if you were to know ahead of time that someone would be towering mid, then you could properly counter vs. them. If you don't know that however, and you're stuck with a team that is not as capable at sieging then you're kind of stuck. In addition, I don't feel the cost properly reflects the power if the towers are being used by an AoE hero. It's easy to farm the 1600 that it costs to set up two towers, especially if your hero duels as a PK'r (Inf and Roth atm., but a well-played DW/Tyrant/Garg or a team with Swash are examples).

I've never touted this strategy as invincible and I don't feel it is. In fact, my biggest opposition to it is that tower building tends to make games a lot longer then they could be, and using attack gens (the gen "tower" alternative) is a big waste of time since replens/siege/execution gens are MUCH better.

I'll keep doing it for awhile and will continue to post both victories and failures (undoubtedly at some point it's going to be broken, especially now that I've announced it outloud so I look forward to evaluating that). If it does seem to be a weak strat that takes getting used to (which it could) then all's better for the game. If not, or if it delays the game unnecessarily, I still think it should be looked at for some revision.

This used post to be longer. Now it is long, but a lot shorter then it was.

[Discombobulator]

While Ion is making himself a fortress in the middle, I'll take the other 4 obs and maybe destroy a base or two.

[Kalrithus]

Ion you stole my strat... you dirty dirty person you!

[Luftwaffles]

You just don't like my posts because I'm in disagreement.
I've backed it up as much as is necessary. Towers are expensive, and not that big of a problem.

My brain hurts talking to you. For a second I couldn't even tell if it was Dark or Reaper I was talking to, and then I noticed the punctuation. First of all, you just threw down a hugeeeeee strawman. It is true I dislike your argument; it is not true that the only reason I dislike them is because you're in disagreement with me (and implying you're right). I welcome criticism, and would love for towers not to be cheese if you don't pick BP. However, the reason I refute your argument and do not agreement is because it is this:

towers are weak as shit

Why change towers? Making them lose 800-1000 gold when they die is enough. you can just crush them without much trouble, who cares?

Considering there are 5 lanes I don't know if that really matters.

Reading this, I am supposed to accept the premiss that "towers are weak as shit" simply from your authority. Then I am supposed to assume first that they will die, then because I lose 800+ gold I am punished, and not only that but hey guys "they are easy to crush". Then you mention there are 5 lanes.

1. - I explained that it is easy for an Inf. and allies to farm the money to build towers. If I was to lose them, the sunk cost that probably netted me a fair share of cores could easily be rebuilt if necessary.

1. - I explained that towers have 2500 HP, deal between 60-120 damage (with varying attack rates); which in threes and fours is enough to pwn spawn waves, and with a hero can hold off another hero or two pre-Level 40+ (haven't gotten that far and can't vouch for that yet). If towers are weak as shit, I guess you must attack them right off the bat Level 1 since they're so shitty why even worry about them

1. - I explained that while it is true what you state that there are 5 lanes, the middle lane has 2 obs, and with 3-4 towers is going to attract heroes from other lanes; and while they're not in those lanes, they can't help those spawns.

While Ion is making himself a fortress in the middle, I'll take the other 4 obs and maybe destroy a base or two.

EDIT*: You're making the assumption that mid is:

1) Hard to tower (wrong, very easy especially if I have people to pool me).
2) Hard to keep (wrong, once you have 4 all you need is one hero to nurse it here and there).
3) That if I take mid, I won't have enough time to take other obs (wrong, if I take mid you're in the position where you have to worry about me sieging mid or command to other ob lanes- oh no!)

Except it only takes one person to ob/tower mid, a little bit of pooling from other people, and by controlling mid I have a free +2 Obs until Level 20 (when you can start trying to command tower). If I have 4 other team mates, at most 3 can be elsewhere. If you leave mid, I will just build siege gens. If you come mid, I have towers and all I need is at most two other heroes to stop big merc waves. My heroes can go elsewhere, they can fight wilderobs, hold other ob lanes, and can defend bases.

If you watched the replay, we actually lost bot (on left side). But who cares about bot.

So really, if things were so easy and had worked out so wonderfully as you've said, I probably wouldn't be here bitching about towers since I would've had my ass handed to me since taking mid obs means I can't hold any others.

[DarkNemesis]

My brain hurts talking to you.

My brain hurts listening to your endless complaining about heroes being OP (RK, Rue, etc) as well as towers. If towers are really OP, why the hell did you wait until now to bitch about it?

Also, watching both of the replays I noticed you failed to get either termite jars or sludges? As well several instances you passed up when you could have easily AoO the escaping Treant. Oh, and playing without a mouse, epic!

My advice:

1) Buy a mouse
2) Learn to use AoO
3) Buy Termite jars and sludges

More later should you post another complaint.

[Elreth]

There are a number of viable counters to this strategy, although certainly sludges and termite jars are not chief among them.

Its not really the towers' fault, rather than that this is an easy way to sort of act as a team which unless countered by a similar strategy is rather powerful.

[DarnYak]

Note: Someone should probably lock this now, it's clear those who posted here dissagree with Luft's bullshit claims.

Nah, this issue isn't anywhere near ressolved. I may have to delete a bunch of posts if people don't knock it off though.

DarnYak

[BustroQuick]

Off-topic posts have been split to a new thread, which can be found in the topic graveyard.

Talk about towers, please. Not DarkNemesis.

[Discombobulator]

Towers mean concentrating your resources in one spot. The enemy has a vast choice of less defended spots to attack. If you're able to tower one or more places, while not losing anything anywhere, I'd say that your team is a lot stronger than the other.

Srsly, mid is easy to hold with just 4 towers? With the money your team spent to make 4 towers, my team can send golems into all 5 lanes.