Towers that have passive abilities

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Hakuna
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Towers that have passive abilities

Postby Hakuna » Mon Apr 30, 2018 10:57 pm

This is a tricky subject.

First I want to recognize that abilities are some of what makes a tower feel special and make you want to build it. They set them apart from the competition, and in a game like Legion with 90 towers, there is a lot of competition.

In Legion however we are already given numerous factors which influence which tower we want to build:
  • Can I afford it?
  • What is the damage type of the wave I'm trying to hold? (i.e. what armor type do I want?)
  • What is the armor type of the wave I'm trying to hold? (i.e. what damage type do I want?)
  • Is it melee or ranged? How long range?
  • Do I need more tanks or more damage dealers or some support towers (auras, healers, etc) ?
Not meant to be a comprehensive list, but you get the idea. Even if there were not abilities at all in the game, diversity of damage type, armor type, role (tank or damage), and range would still provide plenty of reasons to pick one tower over another.

Anyway there is one particular class of ability that I want to talk about that I think causes unnecessary clutter: damage increase abilities.

There are a few towers whose ability just causes an increase of damage on every attack. This to me is a waste, because the damage could simply be higher or it could at least be a more interesting ability. Let me give some examples:
  • Tuskar Spearmen deal additional 12 damage on every attack. This does not cost mana. This does not need to be the case, it could just be a slow and have higher base damage. Is the reason for this so that Tuskar spearmen are not as effected by the Telescope aura or Captain aura as much as other towers? Why?
  • Sentries deal 20 extra (magic?) damage on every attack. This does not cost mana. This must be for the same reason as with Tuskar Spears, to make auras weaker on them? Again I don't see the point. Why not just raise the base damage by 20? There is no reason for this ability to exist in my opinion.
  • Magnataurs have a 100% chance to deal 1.4 times damage. What is the point of this? Wouldn't a crit calculate bonus damage from auras, or does it not? If not, why is this nerf to a magnataur's damage important? Giving him a crit chance which isn't even listed in the upgrade description seems pointless. The Warden used to have this as well but it got changed, which I approve of.
  • Goblin Alchemist has an ability which doubles his attack and move speed. It is a passive, does not get cast or have a duration, so I see absolutely no point to it. Just make the alchemist move and attack at the speed that the ability currently allows him to. The listed attack speed of 1 is deceiving because he actually never attacks that slowly, he always attacks at 0.5 speed. I can't imagine how bad of a tower he would be if he moved at half of his normal speed part of the time, that would be so slow! I am pretty sure it would be even slower than the blaster without his buff.
For now that is all the towers that I know of with abilities like this.

Now I want to clarify, I think abilities are great and add so much fun to the game I would never want a game without abilities. Some abilities are similar to the ones I listed, like the Fire Archers, but in their case they are consuming mana so it is not a permanent effect. The Riders have a damage buff on their first five attacks but then it is gone, so again, there is a reason for it to exist. Critical strikes like the Ranger and Melial have are a bit of a quandry to me, since it would not be completely unreasonable just to give them higher damage, but crits are a staple in many Tower Defence games, so I am ok with a few of them existing in Legion as well.

Primarily I'm just arguing against abilities that make the tower descriptions inaccurate or misleading 100% of the time.

Thanks for reading. :)
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