Thanks for the detailed numbers. It seems that if a bug is killed by the base turret, we only get points but not money. It that true? if it is, what about exp for heros? Thanks!
Actually its the other way around. You don't get any hero xp for turret kills (wouldnt really make sense if you did). You always get money from any kills though.
Just check out the leaderboard for kitchen (easy). Do you actually believe people can do round 157? What is your record? I tried your strategy (thanks by the way), it helped me make to round 31 on office (easy). I felt so accomplished. Even on office, the leader is round 78... I think it is so unreal...
We are currently investigating whether the top 2 scores are legit on kitchen easy. We do know for sure that the #3 spot is legit though... hacking and cheating will be eliminated in the next update.
Oh, is that true?! That is so unbelievable. It took me 58 minutes to reach round 31 on office easy and these people must be exhausted after reaching 100 rounds. Not to mention the awkward moving control for the need to plug in USB for battery charging. I hope I am not the only people felt this uneasiness. It is just so hard...
The Scorpion stats are absolutely mind-blowing. No wonder I was having such trouble taking them out. With the numbers out, Howitzer looks absolutely insane. A bit underwhelmed by the firecracker turret stats, as they are so inaccurate. Thanks for the numbers!
Yeah, lots of stuns and slowdowns are a necessity for killing scorpions. He is probably the one enemy where you will have a hard time if you don't use all your heroes together. As for firecrackers, don't forget they have huge AOE's, so the potential damage they can do from one blast is significant. Also, unlike laser and sniper turrets their rate of fire increases with upgrades as well.
The potential is definitely there, it's just that I don't see them as reliable base defense - even if I manage to web/stun/snare the incoming enemies, I don't have a reliable expectation that it will hit. I'm not trying to criticize the tower - maybe it becomes very effective at max level. I just haven't seen fit to use it that extensively, because I've seen too many waves pass by completely untouched. Even the (rare) successful direct hit has to be taken into account by considering all the misses prior to it. That's a lot of damage that other turrets could have been doing. Meh. It seems much better to use the aoe of the magnifying glass combined with the spider's night-manipulation to make sure it is daytime when you need it to be (a technique I haven't tried, but have been considering). ATM, I have been primarily using sniper turrets, as the AP is invaluable and I love the freedom to wander granted by their range (and I don't have to rely on a changing daytime variable). On another note: both ant and beetle have hp regen methods (and can purchase his, which regens hp for all characters, beetle has a talentable regen). It definitely feels like spider needs something in that respect. He's non-ranged (and I think he may have a shorter range than beetle, yes?), low-armored and has to engage with enemies that are often guaranteed a hit or two on him, depending on various factors. since the other two characters have methods of sustaining themselves both in the arena and in the TD segment, does spider have some sort of life-sucking coming? Maybe on the poor souls caught in his web? I know we're not supposed to beg for new moves and stuff, so i'm posing it as a question. : D Then again, maybe I just need more finesse. EDIT: Speaking of finesse, a HUGE strategy I forgot to mention is for kitchen. I've had a lot of problems often getting stuck somewhere in that crack in the wall, pressed up against armor ants or some other heavy-armor baddies in that little space. It can be a huge hit to your hp. I used to resolve it with ant hole, but you can actually teleport through the wall onto the other side (where the cans are, on the kitchen counter part). This has been a HUGE boon for me both in collecting coins (so I don't have to run all the way back from my base, as with ant hole), and in evading enemies while keeping the pressure up. Not to mention, it's a much better tactical ability than ant hole when it comes to staving off agression both at your base and elsewhere.
I would agree that Spider needs a health regeneration ability, especially for Coliseum. But Life Support helps all heroes, so you can use that for Spider as well. You can use Iron Hood if you like to fight small bugs with Spider. Yes, that's just one of the many uses for Teleporter. You can also use it to quickly grab history scrolls and stun and knock back loads of enemies, as well as scout out where coins and stuff are.
Level 21 Hard Ant: Lucky shot-> Speed -> Defense skill Life Support (Support) Teleport (Stun, Escape, Quest) Howitzer (Crowd Thinner/Nuke) BBG (Crowd Thinner/Nuke) Spider: Assassin/Speed -> Health -> Defense Skill Web Snare (DoT/Snare) Poison Coud (Debuff/Snare) Assassin Bomb (Nuke) (Iron Hood) - Died before I bought this Beetle: 2 Regen -> Stun/Armor Shield Bash (10s Directional Stun) Stampede (8s Directional Stun) Earthquake Jump (12s Map Stun) Squash Em (Nuke) Weapon Upgrade x1 (Wrench was going to be my next purchase) Turrets: Zapper R5 MG R5 Sniper R4 Laser R3 Basic Strategy: Cycle through stuns for defense rounds and boss mobs Lots of switching: Ant Teleport -> Beetle Attack/Earthquake -> Ant BBG -> Spider Poison/attack -> Beetle Shield -> Spider Bomb -> Beetle Squash em/Attack/Stampede Used Spider alot early game, ant when I was trying to heal up and keep the bugs back, and beetle for CC/AoE damage. With the stun procs from the upgraded weapon, skill points, and all the stun special moves, the base guns had time to tear through the mobs. I turned down every quest past level 8 or so, put spider webs on the close corner and either the far corner or inside the wall area to stagger mobs approaching the base. Spider died around round 12 (was not paying attention to my stun cycle timing). I lost due when a grub launcher spawned while I was getting nailed by siege and tongue slugs. Hit #9 on the High Scores. Anyone have any suggestions for tweaking my strategy or gear?
Looks like a good strategy to me. Fully upgraded machine guns are very powerful, and have a pretty long range actually, so I usually go with 2 or 3 of those, and either a zapper and a sniper, or just a sniper.
I made it to level 26 in Kitchen on normal ONCE. I don't know what happened and by what miracle I did it, but for the last 20 attempts (40 minutes each) I can't beat levels 18-19. I have all guns, bunch of abilities. I pop all the stuns and damage in staggered way, it's just impossible to destroy the mass of bugs that's dumped on you unless you time everything perfectly. At this point I gave up on game, not being able to beat same level 20 times in row using different approaches is not right. I am sure I am not the only person who has this problem. Also, upgrading your stash seems useless as a way to gain more base HP. For healing it's usefull in a way, but as soon as few of those huge bugs get to your base, whether you have 1000HP or 50HP , you will die, it's just a matter of extra 3 seconds for the 1000 you spent on upgrades.
I've found that maxing out a zapper and a MG by level 18 or so is key, since that will take care of a lot of the smaller bugs, letting you focus on nuking and stunning the boss mobs. Duplicating your abilities across characters helps a lot too so you can can have 3 nukes ready (My favorites: Smash Em, Assassin Bomb, Howitzer, BBG) and 3 or more CCs ready (My favorites: Earthquake, Stampede, Shield, Web Snare, Poison Cloud, Teleport, upgraded Beetle weapon) Turtling at the base has cost me the game at 19/20, but splitting up the wave by dropping a web snare in the wall area entrance, then pounding with beetle for chain stun procs and using skill stuns/spider poison to delay the approach. This buys time for your base guns to clear out the spawns from the top left. If you position the Beetle to the side or rear of the boss mobs (and your armor is high enough), you'll take very little damage from the gunners while chain stunning and knocking smaller mobs off the ledge. Save Better Base Guns for late in the round when all your other stuns/nukes are on cooldown. Other random observations: Howitzer is awesome for clearing out bomb tossing bugs, MG teams, and poison slugs Crowd Control is king Porta Turrets are too weak to be useful past round 15 or so Switch very frequently- Spider to move, Beetle if more than 2 mobs, Ant if exploring/regrouping/going on Defense. Spider and Ant will get shredded if cornered or surrounded. Don't use your next stun until the mob starts moving again- if you are next to the mob or behind it, you'll have plenty of time to swing and hope for a stun proc then use a stun special to re-stun as it is turning to face you. With Beetle's stun skill at 4 or 5, it procs very frequently.
We've made a few balance tweaks on later rounds for the next updated, but you are exaggerating a bit A siege maggot for ex does 15 damage and attacks once every 5 seconds... even with several of them attacking your base at once its going to take a LONG time to take care of 1000 food in your base -- not to mention your turrets should be dishing out extreme damage by round 18-19. Even centipedes do "only" 55 damage, and they attack once every 5 seconds as well. Having 1000 food vs 500 makes a HUGE difference -- then again these upgrades are really only useful of course if you collect the food to fill up the space. The upgrades also increase the amount of food your heroes can hold, so you don't have to go back and forth from base to food all the time... fully upgraded your base of course will have 1000 HPs, but also your heroes can hold as much as an EXTRA 1000 food, essentially giving your base 2000 HPs! Its crucial to try to find as much food as possible, and to waste as little as you can... Also have you tried different levels? Different levels have completely different rounds and enemies, so you may find one to be more enjoyable/easier then the other. Also what kind of load out are you using for turrets and your heroes? Although some may suggest against it, if you are losing every time by getting your base eaten, one of the best and easiest solutions is to use Bug Bombs... its the perfect defensive "last resort" weapon -- you just have to make sure to build one BEFORE you are about to die. It does damage to all enemies on the map and stuns them to give you time to get back and defend if you have to. Also better base guns is an amazing defensive ability, as is earthquake jump, stampede, and adrenaline for knocking enemies back away from your food. Finally, I definitely have to stress the importance of killing as many enemies as you can BEFORE they all converge on your base. If you just sit back and wait for the horde to come to you, its going to be much harder then if you wander out a bit and try to "thin out the crowd." This of course doesn't mean run all the way to the other side of the map, but simply "lurk" around a distance from your base to kill what you can before they get there, and use teleport or ant hole to quickly get back. Gritztastic has also given some great strategies
After I made the initial post I decided to go back to my old strategy, which revolves around using porta-turrets. Since those benefit from Better Base Guns, they are pretty usefull even after 15. This time I was able to get to 22, still I got overwhelmed by the bugs shortly after 19. I know about switching, stacking up the food, using proper bugs and such. CC is CC, if you don't have the damage to back it up, it's only a temporary solution. After level 18 even with last to full upgrade on all 4 guns (looks like there's no favorable combination) and CC and Nuke on all bugs (meaning each bug has 4 abilities) it's very hard to output enough damage to deal with incoming forces. I have Gauntlet, Shield, Stampede and crazy jump ability on beetle. All CC with mix of damage. I also have web and nuke on Spider , again for CC and nuking. I find Ant to be most usefull bug with fully upted Lucky Shot. I usually upt weapon to level 2, I have porta turrets, Life Support on constant CD (to stack more food I collect), Teleport (some CC and way out of bad situations). I find it hard to use any of Ants fire support abiliities, all it takes is few turret bugs to take out Ant while it's standing still, so I find those abilities very dangerous to use. Overall, I'll try weeding out the crowd, but after 15 or so, it's nearly impossible to move even remotely away from base. Constant barrages of turret guys out of screen make it very dangerous. You walk and all of a sudden you r knocked backed and taking 10-15 bullets and there's pretty much nothing you can do. I guess the moral of the story, if you want to go beyond level 20, be prepared to sweat like a pig and manage your bugs perfectly.
Well, we did make a few balance changes in the next update so that may fix some of your issues... for one burrow mines have been greatly increased in effectiveness as a more defensive weapon (lower cooldown, but higher spread). Siege maggots do slightly less damage. Various tweaks on some of the later waves for most levels (yes, some are probably a tad too hard right now). So if you are frustrated, be sure to give it another go once the update comes out Oh yeah and of course each new hero has a new ability as well in the next update.
Glad to hear that you guys are working on the update, I'll be sure to buy it. I was hoping to see bit more exposure of Bugs in App Store. A lot of the apps that did not make it into to 25 or so usually don't get much support, hope game keeps growing.
