User blog:Qwertyxp2000 the second/Balance change suggestions for 27.0

The wording used for these balance change reasonings are from the perspective as if I was a game developer specializing in balance changes.

Dart Monkey
Most Dart Monkey upgrades have suitable usages as a niche or early-game tower at the Dart Monkey's current state. However, the Juggernaut upgrade at core is a specialization at crushing Ceramics, to which alternate anti-Ceramic options are more reliable for their prices. This hefty Ceramic bonus should help give it some more anti-Ceramic value. On the other hand, while we're happy about the Super Monkey Fan Club's overall power, a few tweaks to improving its performance overall should help make it a little more encouraging to pursue. This same buff will also affect its successor Plasma Monkey Fan Club.


 * Juggernaut Ceramic damage increased (+2 --> +4, 4 --> 6)
 * Super Monkey Fan Club transformed monkeys now have bonus range that is additive on top of range upgrades rather than substituting base range into the minimum of 40 range. Therefore, all Path 3 crosspath Dart Monkeys will have +8 range at all times instead of a minimum of 40 range compared to 32 default non-transformed range.
 * For x-x-1, new range increased from 40 --> 48
 * For x-x-2, new range increased from 48 --> 56

Boomerang Monkey
Glaive Lord with the Red Hot Rangs upgrade doesn't give enough of an improvement to its rotating glaives. A small buff has been given to Glaive Lord overall, with the intention of making the bottom path synergize better with this upgrade. On the flip side, MOAB Domination's Glaives upgrade doesn't feel effective enough to use over the consistent attacks that the first Path 2 upgrades offer, so extra damage and pierce has been given to balance this out and buff the MOAB Domination's weaker path.
 * Glaive Lord and MOAB Domination overall buffs to "weaker" crosspath


 * Glaive Lord orbital glaives attacks faster (0.1s --> 0.05s)
 * Glaive Lord bonus Ceramic and MOAB damage decreased (+5 --> +2)
 * 1-0-5 MOAB Domination now gives the old improvements from 2-0-5, with the (correct) +10 explosion pierce and greater explosion radius.
 * 2-0-5 MOAB Domination now adds a further +10 explosion pierce, +100 explosion damage, and napalm lasts for 6 seconds instead of 4.

Glaive Lord's infinite pierce feels a bit too powerful compared to alternate arbitrarily high or infinite pierce towers, especially in Race Events. Balancing out the orbital glaives into a generally high pierce while gaining the capability to internally gain attack speed buffs should shift power towards crosspathing. The high pierce is partially retained in Path 3 to further encourage a high-pierce niche, obtainable via the Long Range Rangs crosspath, and focus on orbital glaives. On the other hand, Path 2 crosspathing affecting the orbital glaives should give Glaive Lord some more general purpose usage. One substantial price cut was also made to compensate this rework.
 * Glaive Lord pierce + crosspathing reworks
 * Glaive Lord orbital glaives base pierce decreased (infinite --> 120)
 * Glaive Lord orbital glaives base pierce decreased but increased when crosspathed with Long Range Rangs (infinite --> 2,400)
 * Glaive Lord with Path 2 crosspaths now will affect its orbital glaives
 * Glaive Lord costs less ($32,400 --> $29,500)

Bomb Shooter
Reviewing the state of the Bomb Shooter as a whole, many of the upgrades for the Bomb Shooter in the game have an adequate purpose for each stage of the game, but the Frag Bombs crosspath is rarely utilized outside of a stepping stone for Cluster Bombs. On another perspective, the Bloon Impact damage type nerf was a mistake, due to the Icicles partially countering the Ice Monkey's White weakness thanks to its icicle shards. Instead of outright reverting the damage type nerf for Bloon Impact, we took the opportunity to let the weaker 4-0-2 crosspath become more effective and reliable at partially countering the Bomb Shooter's Black weakness, done by buffing Frag Bombs crosspaths as a whole for all higher-tier and lower-tier upgrades. Additionally, the Extra Range upgrade has been inherited the bonus range from the Frag Bombs upgrade in order highlight the burst attack focus of Frag Bombs.


 * Frag Bombs crosspathing reworks
 * Frag Bombs base pierce increased (1 --> 2)
 * Frag Bombs no longer grants +2 range.
 * Extra Range now gains more range (+7 --> +9)
 * Frag Bombs fragment projectile size decreased (2 --> 1). Now requires 1-0-2 Frag Bombs (Bigger Bombs) to gain 2 projectile size for fragments
 * 2-0-2 Frag Bombs (Heavy Bombs) now grants +1 pierce for fragments, for 3 pierce total, and damage type is now Shatter instead of Sharp.
 * 3-0-2 Frag Bombs (Really Big Bombs) now grants +2 pierce for fragments on top, for 5 pierce total. Also affects 4-0-2 Frag Bombs (Bloon Impact).
 * 5-0-2 Frag Bombs (Bloon Crush) now grants +8 fragments and +3 pierce for fragments on top, for 16 fragments and 8 pierce per fragment.
 * 0-3-2 Frag Bombs (MOAB Mauler) fragments now deal +4 damage to MOAB-class and +1 damage to Ceramics
 * 0-4-2 Frag Bombs (MOAB Assassin) fragments now deal +9 damage to MOAB-class and +3 damage to Ceramics
 * 0-5-2 Frag Bombs (MOAB Eliminator) fragments now deal +30 damage to MOAB-class and +3 damage to Ceramics


 * Self-approved? Yes
 * Urgency Rating: 10/10

Tack Shooter
Crosspathing for Blade Maelstrom and Super Maelstrom are both rarely utilized for its main attacks, because the majority of its power comes from their abilities. Along with improved base attacks, the ability is adjusted to encourage crosspathing. Path 1 will give extra attack speed to the waves of blades, while Path 2 will give greater ability duration. The pierce of the base abilities have been reduced to accommodate for adding in better crosspathing variety. This should overall be an overall buff for both variants of crosspathed Maelstroms in spite of the reduced pierce.

The range upgrades are in an awkward spot, especially due to requiring extreme pixel-perfect placement on Spillway's barrel to let a lower-level Tack Shooter attack bloons. To make up for that issue, the range bonus for Tack Shooters have been very slightly increased, which should also make a very slight difference to go for Path 2 crosspathing. Similarly, Tack Zone's Path 2 benefits have been smoothened with each upgrade on that path.


 * Maelstrom and Smaelstrom crosspathing reworks
 * Blade Maelstrom base range increased (31 --> 35)
 * Super Maelstrom base range increased (31 --> 45)
 * Blade Maelstrom base blade pierce increased (6 --> 9)
 * Super Maelstrom base blade pierce increased (6 --> 30)
 * Blade Maelstrom and Super Maelstrom ability attack speed increased with Faster Shooting (0.0333s --> 0.0300s; 30/sec --> ~33/sec)
 * Blade Maelstrom and Super Maelstrom ability attack speed increased with Even Faster Shooting (0.0333s --> 0.0250s; 30/sec --> 40/sec)
 * Blade Maelstrom ability duration increased by +0.5s with each Path 3 upgrade, for a maximum of 4s duration.
 * Super Maelstrom ability duration increased by +1.5s with each Path 3 upgrade, for a maximum of 12s duration.
 * Blade Maelstrom pierce decreased (200 --> 120)
 * Super Maelstrom pierce decreased (500 --> 360)


 * Self-approved? Yes
 * Urgency Rating: 6/10


 * Range buffs + Tack Zone Path 2 smoothening
 * Long Range Tacks range bonus increased (+4 --> +5), for 28 range instead of 27.
 * Super Range Tacks range bonus increased (+4 --> +5), for 33 range instead of 31.
 * 0-1-5 The Tack Zone range increased (34 --> 42)
 * 0-1-5 The Tack Zone's pierce increased (4 --> 7). 0-2-5 The Tack Zone pierce remains the same.
 * 0-2-5 The Tack Zone's range increased (50 --> 54).


 * Self-approved? Yes
 * Urgency Rating: 7/10

Glue Gunner
The higher Path 3 upgrades of the Glue Gunner tend to settle at only the MOAB Glue upgrade, mainly due to the fact that the higher level upgrades don't seem to feel worthy enough for use. To give some more uniqueness to the Relentless Glue and Super Glue upgrades, the addition of a partially contagious glue property is added to each direct shot of glue from those two upgrades to add more meaning to the stickiness aspect of glue, while powering up both of them even further in a unique way without directly copying another existing tower in the game.

On top of these changes, MOAB Glue and higher upgrades will receive better support with Path 1 crosspathing, as Path 1 crosspaths dealing no significant effect to MOAB-class bloons makes no sense and because Path 2 tends to be the to-go choice for crosspathing MOAB Glue and above.


 * Contagious Glue for Relentless and Super
 * Glue produced directly from projectile shots from Relentless Glue will now provide a contagious glue effect. Bloons contacting the glue will also become glued, but bloons caught by contagious glue will not further spread glue. This will also spread the special property that allows popped bloons to drop on-track blobs.
 * This should still keep the on-track blob effect still in use, but on-track blob effects will become even more widespread more reliably. The new change will further enhance the effectiveness of those on-track blob effects while also noticeably increasing the effectiveness of the MOAB Glue effect versus MOAB-class significantly.
 * As a whole, this change will improve the cost-effectiveness of getting this upgrade compared to just buying multiple MOAB Glues while still requiring some strategical decision as to whether to get multiple MOAB Glues compared to a single Relentless Glue. In fact, one modified Relentless Glue would become more effective on single-lane maps but still not as effective as multiple MOAB Glues on multi-lane maps.
 * Glue produced directly from projectile shots from Super Glue will now provide a contagious glue effect. Bloons contacting the glue will also become glued, but bloons caught by contagious glue will not further spread glue. On top of the Relentless Glue effects, this will also spread the special property that sets blimps on extreme slowdown but without the on-hit damage.
 * Will improve the Super Glue's pierce potential greatly without resorting to just simple stats such as "more attack speed" or "more pierce", which would still make Super Glue feel more like "Glue Impale".


 * Self-approved? Yes
 * Urgency Rating: 8/10


 * Path 1 crosspath buffs for Upper Path 3
 * 1-0-3 MOAB Glue and above status effects will now soak through MOAB-class
 * 2-0-3 MOAB Glue and 2-0-4 Relentless Glue damage per tick versus MOAB-class increased (1 --> 10)
 * Super Glue without Corrosive Glue damage per tick versus MOAB-class increased (1 --> 10)
 * Super Glue with Corrosive Glue damage per tick versus MOAB-class increased (1 --> 25)


 * Self-approved? Yes
 * Urgency Rating: 10/10

Heli Pilot
Trimming off the Marine pierce doesn't do well on high-density rounds. Letting Quad Darts bring back the high pierce value should help encourage a niche option to affect more bloons per shot in exchange for a faster Marine via Path 3, which in addition adds to crosspathing variety.


 * Marine pierce buff with Quad Darts
 * 1-5-0 Marine pierce from Special Poperations increased (20 --> 30).

Wizard Monkey
The Phoenix tends to struggle to be worthy as a mid-game or late-game source, and due to its status as a pure ability, it tends to be outclassed by other more reliable sources. At the current state, the Phoenix's relatively low pierce causes it to get overwhelmed against grouped bloons and its currently weak power across stages of the game where the upgrade is affordable doesn't seem to justify its single-target capabilities. In order to strengthen its global range rapid popping power, crosspathing benefits and extra Ceramic damage are added to make it a little more reliable at both handling difficult grouped mid-game rounds and late-game Super Ceramics.

On the other hand, Prince of Darkness's power in itself feels quite balanced overall for the late-game, but its mid-game power is a bit too strong for its cost, so a small price increase was made to encourage other mid-game options before reaching that upgrade. On the other hand, Prince of Darkness's Necro buff feels slightly underwhelming for Necromancers, so an additional capacity increase for all xx4 Necros has been added to add more value.


 * Phoenix buffs
 * Summon Phoenix's phoenix flames deal +2 damage to Ceramics
 * Summon Phoenix's phoenix flames slightly home and last longer with Guided Magic
 * Summon Phoenix's phoenix flames deal +1 damage with Arcane Blast
 * Summon Phoenix's phoenix flame pierce increased with Intense Magic (6 --> 11)


 * Self-approved? Yes
 * Urgency Rating: 7/10


 * Small PoD rework
 * Prince of Darkness costs more ($24,000 --> $25,000)
 * Prince of Darkness now allows all Necromancers (but not Princes of Darkness) to gain +50% capacity. Prince of Darkness remains at 3000.

Spike Factory
Spiked Balls recently received a nerf that reduced the amount of pierce per ball. While the Path 2 crosspath Spiked Balls feels more balanced for how much power it offers for both the mid-game and late-game, the power of Path 3 Spiked Balls and its upgrade Spiked Mines have been affected too much by the recent pierce nerf. To make up for Path 3 crosspathing versus Path 2 crosspathing, the price of the Long Reach and Smart Spikes upgrades have been reduced even more and the start-of-round attack speed bonus will last slightly longer, which should also increase the value of Spike Factory's lower-tier upgrades in combination with Path 3. On top of this, Spiked Mines' napalm has been buffed to add more value for both the mid-game and late-game, as the napalm currently feels like a vestige of the Spiked Mines' already high explosion damage, and the napalm should help thin out bloon offspring and thus avoid the weaker bloons from eating away at the lower-spike mines. Lastly, the Spiked Mines pierce nerf was also reverted to let it become more effective against Super Ceramics compared to multiple Spiked Balls, plus an even higher amount for Super Mines to better deal with dense bloons charging through it.
 * 26.0 Spiked Balls balance change cleanups
 * Smart Spikes start-of-round attack speed boost increased (2.5s --> 3.0s)
 * Roughly 6 default speed spikes instead of 5 within the period by default.
 * Aimed primarily to balance out 3-0-2 Spiked Balls at handling Round 40 MOABs while not changing the 3-2-0 Spiked Balls. With 6 speedy spiked ball piles, it should be just a little stronger at the Round 40 MOAB (8 left instead of 40 left), so then only 13 full Spiked Ball piles more are needed for the Ceramics underneath. This should make a 3-0-2 Spiked Balls a little more worthy on fast maps like Workshop compared to a 3-2-0 Spiked Balls.
 * Smart Spikes costs less ($400 --> $325)
 * Balances off the cost of Path 3 crosspathing over Path 2 crosspathing.
 * Long Reach costs less ($150 --> $125)
 * Balances off the cost of Path 3 crosspathing over Path 2 crosspathing.
 * Spiked Mines napalm now damages bloons at a faster rate (1 damage per 2.0s for 6.0s --> 1 damage per 0.5s for 4.0s)
 * Therefore, the napalm will deal up to 8 damage for the whole lifespan of the napalm instead of 3 damage.
 * Spiked Mines napalm now deals 2 damage to Ceramics and MOAB-class per tick instead of 1.
 * Spiked Mines spike count increased back to old amount (14 --> 17).
 * Super Mines spike count increased (14 --> 32)


 * Self-approved? Yes
 * Urgency Rating: 9/10

MOAB SHREDR fits in an awkward spot in practical gameplay, especially compared to Spike Storm, as it lacks the versatile MOAB-class damage that other Spike Factory upgrades offer, often wasting its stockpiled spikes onto weaker bloons and offering little-to-no on-demand benefit or bonus damage to all bloon types. To address this and keep it more balanced compared to more popular Spike Factory upgrades, the cost of MOAB SHREDR has been pushed into the Spike Storm upgrade while keeping the Spike Storm upgrade at a similar price overall.
 * MOAB SHREDR versus Spike Storm prices


 * MOAB SHREDR costs less ($2500 --> $2100)
 * Spike Storm costs more ($5000 --> $5400)
 * Fun fact: a whole 1-4-0 Spike Storm after this change will cost just over double the price of 2 1-3-0 MOAB SHREDRs
 * The new difference between two 1-3-0 SHREDRs and one 1-4-0 SStorm on Hard will be $530 favoring SHREDRs.
 * The old difference between two 1-3-0 SHREDRs and one 1-4-0 SStorm on Hard is currently $760 favoring SStorm.
 * Whole 1-3-0 discount is changed from ~$924 to ~$859.5 on Hard, a ~$64.5 difference. Hardly a nerf except maybe on #Ouch where every dollar matters.


 * Self-approved? Yes
 * Urgency Rating: 6/10

Touching on multiple aspects of the Spike Factory's dominant and weaker crosspaths, the Path 2 crosspath still feels too strong in comparison to alternate crosspaths. In addition, the bottom path feels too top-heavy with Permaspike being the sole motive behind that path, outside of the uncommon crosspathing option. Reworking Path 2 to provide a lower attack speed boost should solidify the highlighted faster refreshment over the superior stockpiling potential, while keeping the weaker crosspaths and lower-tier Path 2 Spike Factories at similar power. Boosting the MOAB SHREDR and lowering costs of the Tier 3 and 4 bottom path upgrades were also done to improve their performance over the versatility of the powerful Spiked Balls. In particular, Long Life Spikes' carry-over mechanic feels insignificant given Long Reach's large lifespan boost, and Deadly Spikes feels underperforming in comparison to gaining external buffs even when utilizing its niche extra carry-over round mechanic. Permaspike's upgrade price is also increased a slight amount while keeping its overall price similar overall.
 * Path 2 crosspathing reworks


 * Even Faster Production attack speed boost decreased (0.70x --> 0.80x, 0.98s --> 1.12s, total +79% --> +56%)
 * Faster Production costs less ($600 --> $500)
 * Even Faster Production costs less ($800 --> $750)
 * MOAB SHREDR now gains a 17% attack speed bonus for its main attack. Does not affect Spike Storm ability.
 * Long Life Spikes costs less ($1400 --> $1250 $1150)
 * Deadly Spikes costs less ($3500 --> $2300 $2400)
 * Permaspike costs more ($30,000 --> $31,500)
 * Total cost reduction of 0-2-5 from prior upgrades: -$100 (x-1-x), -$50 (x-2-x), -$250 (x-x-3), -$1100 (x-x-4)
 * Permaspike base attack speed increased (4.85s --> 4.30s 4.25s)
 * 0-1-5 Permaspike attack speed increased (3.88s --> 3.44s 3.40s)
 * 0-2-5 Permaspike attack speed remains at 2.72s (Note: anything below 100th of a second makes little difference)
 * Super Mines base attack speed increased (3.5s --> 3.0s)
 * 5-1-0 Super Mines attack speed increased (2.8s --> 2.4s)
 * 5-2-0 Super Mines attack speed increased (1.96s --> 1.92s)

Engineer Monkey
The power of the Energy Sentry feels underpowered and overall feels like the odd one out of the Sentry Expert. Energy Sentry has been given more attack speed in exchange for extra damage to synergize better with internal buffs and specialize better versus MOAB-class bloons, as Sprocket Sentries tend to do better at MOAB-class despite increased pierce.

On the other hand, Sentry Paragon is a solid option with its 5-2-0 upgrade, but other crosspaths tend to be lacklustre in comparison. Taking into account Sentry Paragon, the bonus sentry range from Larger Service Area tends to do worse than it helps for many sentries in general; giving a bit more bonus range should help settle that upgrade alone a bit more appropriately, as well as make it better for Sentry Paragon balance. The pierce bonus for Sentry Paragon is insignificant compared to the benefits of Deconstruction offering bonus damage against MOABs and Fortified, so the pierce bonus for Sentry Paragon has been increased a fair amount to accommodate for this, and indirectly buffing the Pin crosspath for better handling groups of mid-game bloons.


 * Sentry Expert Energy Sentry buffs
 * Sentry Expert's Energy Sentry attacks faster (0.57s --> 0.25s)
 * Sentry Expert's Energy Sentry damage decreased (2 --> 1)


 * Balancing crosspathing for Sentries
 * 1-1-0 Sentry range bonus increased (+4 --> +8)
 * 5-0-1 Sentry Paragon pierce increased (6 --> 8)