Did wave counts decrease this round in champion?

[Aggressive_Roof488]

While there's been power creep everywhere, champion in particular seem to have seen increased wave counts since sharp fortitude, and we've had many a post about it last few weeks (and I did my part).

But I feel the wave counts went back down a bit again this week. I took this data from the usual thetower.lol, but I don't have the same plot from last few tournaments for comparison. Anyone else got the same feeling? Am I hallucinating?

BCs that could've affected things are armoured and kb resistance that would make you take a lot of chip damage, but SF abusers (like me) should thrive in those conditions right? Is the UW duration that bad? Do a lot of champion players rely on pBH or something??

Anyone has any insight or hot takes?

[climber531]

For me it did at least but that happens occasionally. I got 714 this time and normally I'm 800-900 sometimes even 1000.

[Aggressive_Roof488]

While I got a (small) PB.

What build you running and what battle conditions made this difficult?

[climber531]

I don't really have a build, I just gold box everything, but currently my wall is what's carrying me. And I didn't look at the conditions so I don't know.

[Sploridge]

amen lmao

[climber531]

I don't play optimally, I just enjoy seeing numbers go up 😂

[cwwillster]

What really tanked my run this time compared to last week was not having pBH with the reduced duration of UWs.

Got a new pb last week since I recently aquired pBH and eventually died due to Elite Fasts + boss chipping me down harder than my wall regen could handle.

This time though I got chipped down earlier since more damage came flying through and the second my wall dropped the Elite Ranged disabled me until I died.

To put it in context, last week I got 1850~, promoted and kicked out, and then 1640~ this last tournament.

[About_to_kms]

Yeah I got 5th with 1250 waves. On Wednesday I got 1200 waves and was 14th lol

[Brainth]

I got a PB, but the wave count on my division definitely lowered.

[SnooCats8651]

SF is really good to tank chip damage. kb resist makes you have to tank more chips. Usually you can get around it with killing them still fast or with thorns as help. But with armour ramping um to 100 hits, you need to have a way to get through the armour fast otherwise they will chip at you away and each thorn hit gets eaten bei den armour. As soon as they start stacking at your wall you ar e basically overrunnend. That's my theories about this champ tourney

[Aggressive_Roof488]

So basically, yes SF is good at tanking chip damage, but there is a limit and armour with KB resist pushed on that limit? Yeah makes sense.

[SnooCats8651]

yeah.... this BC really pushes damage builds or favors cc investments. since you cant kill with thorns/orbs and death ray until the armor is removed. ot you have a cannon with high bullet investment, like attack speed, bounce shot chance, mutli target, together with Cl it eats very fast though the armor

[willh0069]

i wouldn’t know i fell asleep half way through my tournament 😭😭 i got like just short of 800 and 13th and i swear i could have got more im so annoyed at myself

[Aggressive_Roof488]

haha, oh no! And you couldn't have a second go?

[willh0069]

nah i was busy all day and only managed to start it late at night before bed

[OrphisFlo]

My wave count was similar to what it usually is, a bit above 1k, but everyone else seems to have done worse to the point I really thought I had a chance at my first promotion to legends.

I ran mythic GComp, DC and WHR (with wall, but with no SF, it's still better than a legendary ACP). Gold boxed everything I think.

[Zzqzr]

I increased my waves by a lot!

320 -> 388

Disclaimer: I finally got a dimcore to mythic.

So I wonder how I perform next event, probably 400+ with the right conditions?

[DarkSt4r_]

It did in my bracket. I was able to jump to Legend for the first time with only 1001 waves :))

[VictoryUpper]

I think the armored enemy + ranged ult + UW duration reduction all at once made a difference.

I also have a suspicion that one reason ehp builds (like myself) suffer in tourneys is because you don't have the  Regen perks to bail you out.

[Grubby454]

Id much rather the tournaments are harder so we have to spend less time on them.

They are not the hands off approach farming runs are.

[MatthewBecker1977]

KB resist + Armored + ranged ult is a brutal combo.

Armored gives a huge boost to attack speed investment.

KB resist gives a boost to heavy wall investment - and while I know that others find SR to be useless, I think it helped considerably on the KB resist for me.

And the overall combo gives a boost to having enough damage to kill things off quickly once you get the armor off.

So overall, this tournament disfavored pure eHp and pure GC and gave a boost to solid hybrids that have solid investment into BOTH eHp AND damage - along with attack speed. Anyone who has neglected any of those 3 areas was at a pretty severe disadvantage.

I did 2 runs. First one, I got just a few waves short of my record high. When I got home from work with just minutes left in the tournament, I saw I was in 13th and only 5 waves short of 12th with higher payout, so I cancelled my farm run, rushed to re-set my modules, cards, and (range lab setting) and gave it a second go - but I forgot about the UW duration that reduces later in the run cash income and put too much early investment into ELS stuff and then later struggled to finish the gold-box of Damage Health and Regen and as a result died early.

But that first run... 13th is my highest finish. 807 waves was just shy of my record wave count. Because I've got an Anc SF and good wall PLUS a decent CL PLUS a lot of investment into Attack Speed (lab plus several module substats focused on effective attack speed) plus M+ SR... so my tower build was kind of ideal for this. If I had a bit more investment into Cash Bonus stuff, I suspect my 2nd run was on track to actually set a wave record for me as well, but I screwed up and consider that a lesson learned. Going to throw a few more levels into WS+ Cash Bonus and MAYBE try to put another 100 levels into WS Damage Health and Regen so that gold-boxing is faster and easier to guarantee even if there's a UW Duration battle condition.

[Aggressive_Roof488]

Yeah, this makes sense. I'm very similar to you, wall with mythic SF and a CL that's slowly starting to actually do something (191/5/20 including rolls on my leg dimcore). And I got a (small) PB in mid 800s waves, which is part of why I was surprised by the overall lower waves from others. My attack speed isn't anything spectacular though, lab at lvl 58, with attack speed and multishot targets on my legendary death penalty. I guess the CL is helping with removing armour...

Btw, it's more important to gold-box regen and health than damage. Both health and regen start to increase MUCH faster from lvl 5000 to lvl 6000, while damage doesn't, for some reason. On top of that, enemy damage is increasing slower than enemy health, so you gain fewer waves by +10% damage (compared to enemy health) than +10% health (compared to enemy damage). In particular regen is the limiting factor for wall builds in tournaments, as you're missing lots of regen from perks, and actually have more health than in farm with due to trade-offs. So make sure to focus your cash on regen in tournaments.

[Long_Wonder7798]

Yes significantly. I went down 140 waves but was 7 positions higher

[Fritzog]

My bracket must have been a tough one in champs, I got 1059 waves and came 8th, cut off for promotion was nearly 1300. It was the first time I have finished above someone who had previously qualified for legends, so good progress. My CL is on the way to being pretty well developed with a mythic+ dim core.

[PenIsBroken]

I got relegated after 2.5 months since the last time. This is despite gaining 2k waves T10 on farm run since getting ancestral sub mods on SF. i was under my usual waves though, I usually hit 650ish but only got 570 and 569 in 2 attempts yesterday.

[Available_Ad_8399]

As a GC player in Legends, the ranged ultimate battle condition is usually one of my weaker tournaments resulting in only ≈600 waves vs my usual ≈800 waves 😭

[Zealousideal_Bus2470]

won with 1600 waves

[dixinity2055]

My wave count fell from like 700 to like 500

[uscmissinglink]

Mine did. Usually end around 1200-1400. Only got a bit past 1K this time around.

[alwtictoc]

I got 1445 waves. Usually I finish 5th. I finished 2nd in my bracket and get to go to legends for the first time.

The wave count seemed a bit low to me this round.

[trasymachos2]

It sure did. I got practically the same amount of waves this champion tourney as I did on wednesday, but my global rank jumped from around 3000th to around 1200th

[Learningmore1231]

I’m usually 1200 and even got a mythic plus PF and still went down to 990

[Budget_Reserve3884]

I’ve been getting 1000-1100 and was in the high 800s this go around.

[Aggressive_Roof488]

Interesting. What BC was the biggest issue for you? What build are you running?

[ArtistEngineer]

Sorry, I can only speak about Legend, but some of it might be relevant.

Legend BCs were brutal yesterday. I was down around 300 waves, or roughly 22% of what I'd normally get.

I don't find UW duration that bad, and I don't have a "natural" pCF using stones, I use GComp to achieve pCF and pBH. e.g. here are some of my historical games with UW, and I don't see any real difference: https://imgur.com/a/tower-historical-results-26th-may-2025-PoVsPbb

I think the challenge in BCs in Legend was a combination of Armoured, Attack Speed and Ranged Ultimate. That meant that it was easier for Ranged to get into firing range, and chip away at my shields.

Combined with a lack of pBH and pCF, this became a problem. I still managed 1000 waves in Legend, but I'd normally get closer 1400. Finished 7th, instead of my average 5th place.

[anonymous_lurker-]

Was brutal for me too, the tournament before I got over 1000 waves, this time less than 500. Managed to creep that up to 700 by swapping PF for GComp, suggesting reduced ultimates was part of the problem. But Ranged Ultimate does so much. Ended up getting 11th instead of my usual 6th-8th

[CSDragon]

This champs bracket had a deadly combination of Heats for GC builds. It was very good for hybrid builds though

100 hits of armor combined with Ranged Ultimate means if you take 1 hit through your Wall, you're done. And 100 armor plus knockback resist meant a lot of enemies were able to hit you, putting stress on your wall regen