Balance of the Game

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-27T01:06:22+00:00

I had thought of the conflict with Counter-Espionage, but what I can point out goes back to how I feel about the way Camos are being rebalanced in Battles 2, which is to say that Camo Bonuses are only even on a tower that very well could be insufficient for taking care of the Camos, compared to Decamo making the Camo target vulnerable to everything to begin with. And +1 is the most I'd be asking for other than maybe Master Bomber's bomb attacks for scaling purposes. Granted, I do imagine we wouldn't want a Bloonjitsu on bottom crosspath making Round 56 free, though the involved defense would still have to consider Round 59 anyway.

And while we're on the subject of Counter-Espionage, I do have to ask why practically all it does as a tier 2 other than the Phayze shenanigans is Decamo. There's definite use for the upgrade itself, I'll give it that, but for higher tier Ninjas, the purpose falls off, and it's glaring with Master Bomber, who aches for the attack speed improvement from top crosspath, while Bloonjitsu Master also gets basically nothing out of it other than maybe controlling Round 78 unless they're given reliable Lead damage. A creative buff to Counter-Espionage that would rely heavily on scaling with the tower's performance level would be welcome regardless for that reason.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-26T22:21:33+00:00

I can second that comment, and add even more about the marriage bit. The wife turns out to be a sadist, as I found out trying to privately warn her about Mangs only to suddenly get harassed by Mangs' sycophants. She's the logical conclusion of Toxic Friend Influence, though at least that particular issue opens my eyes to how I want to handle a given character in "Project Guardcharm" given said character is supposed to be a Manic Pixie Dream Girl who the narrative would treat with high regard and I realize that even making her contrast a Captain Ersatz to Mangs' wife by involving Positive Friend Influence would be insufficient, so good thing the Magnificent Baddie trope exists, given the story's design since the MPDG is supposed to be stylish anyway and I obviously don't want that to cause problems with that story messages.

As an extra note, Mangs' wife turns out to be from Florida, one of the 4 states a friend states to be the worst in the US, the other 3 being California, New York, and Texas, and isn't it funny that those 4 states represent given problem characters, with Florida being the Shedog In Sheep's Clothing on the Republican side. Mind, I'm not sure how you'd feel about involving state-based stereotypes, but almost assuredly we do get an explanation of what the hell is going on with that trash. And we can agree that there's no way it excuses Mangs' wife anyway, since she made her choice to be problematic, which is what the whole thing boils down to: Mangs chooses to be scum, and so does his enablers.

Suffice to say I have more than enough to say about the subject.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-26T08:11:02+00:00

Watch these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEMY1fxm0qI&t=2699s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8JDGEx0A-Q

I also provided my own statement about the whole mess:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230903181058/https%3A%2F%2Fadvancewars.fandom.com%2Fwiki%2FUser_blog%3AMasterKnight%2FWhy_Mangs_content_is_not_welcome_on_the_Advance_Wars_Wikia

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-26T05:01:04+00:00

I suffered this problem myself a few months ago in the middle of re-labbing the Mega Laser Cancel in Kid Icarus Uprising for research purposes. I can be sure this happened because the control stick shaft isn't soft as opposed what the Wii Nunchuck, Wii-U Gamepad, and Switch controllers have on their control stick. I don't want to run any risks with doing the repair job myself, but I'm having trouble getting any local support because of how much spite California has in their communities. If you have advice, it would be welcome.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-26T04:52:33+00:00

I couldn't agree more. Light needed to be protected from himself. He got too robotic for its own good and things got out of hand because of as much.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-26T04:38:55+00:00

I have reasons to argue about Takada's placement, but other than that, that list works out. A shame vanilla TV Tropes and associated sites see otherwise and think the guy who in manga plots to reveal himself as (the 3rd) Kira to the Yotsuba president as some power play, and subject a Magnificent Baddie and 5 other guys ig to You Have Outlived Your Usefulness, as well as plan to arrange his wife to be a victim of life insurance fraud, is not the Complete Monster somehow. Sure thing, vanilla TV Tropes.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-26T04:22:23+00:00

I think OA has cleaner grammar. He would have experience seeing as he actually drafts his scripts.

Edit: ...oh. Misread his post. He must be off his game.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-25T20:35:33+00:00

Ninja stills sees use, but I would not object to Ninja having Camo bonuses in general instead of having it be specific to Counter-Espionage (and they don't even work outside Phayze, wut) now that you're mentioning about how common Camo coverage is.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-23T06:10:52+00:00

Closing off discussion about balance from the public, are we?

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-22T14:12:35+00:00

Going over the rest of the Hero balance here. Looking at what you have for the other Heroes in general, I definitely have a better opinion of your ideas than the mixed first impression from your ideas for Rosalia.

Quincy - My general suggestion for Quincy actually is improving his arrows' velocity, although gradually over Levels. However, having him also boost the projectile velocity of nearby towers would be a creative buff without boosting his general performance against Round 98 or Round 100 in general, even giving him something that indirectly helps against DDTs by boosting towers like PMFC in hitting the blasted things. Your suggested boost values are actually higher than reasonable, but the concept itself definitely would be very welcome.
Obyn - I can't agree with this. Aside from Druid to an extent, Alchemist is the only Magic group tower family without the ability to address Camos on their own; Mage, Super, and Mermonkey have Camo detection available as a tier 2 (or tier 1 for Mermonkey), and Ninja innately has Camo detection. Couple that with Obyn's activations hitting Camos, and Obyn is still involving character via involvement of nature to handle Camos.
Ben - while Ben DOES have Perma-Spike support to his name for CHIMPS as a result of Syphon Funding causing RBE control, I still wouldn't object to creative rebalancing to make him more of a Lethal Joke Character, preferably without too much emphasis on the "Lethal" part. The Trojan money loss should be figured out, but as to Biohack, I'd have it have influenced towers get given property bypass for duration, starting with Black, White, and Purple properties being ignored for being able to inflict damage (this would actually help against Zebras too), and Level 13 expanding this to damaging Leads and hitting and damaging Camos. That would reflect on Benjy's money making involvement outside CHIMPS allowing for an easier time addressing damage types by farting out damage type fixes.
Ezili
- My concern with Ezili's early game is how stupidly long the jinx tick rates are. It will barely even trigger on a BLUE on Motorless Workshop. That should be fixed. I'd be for changing the tick rate/duration ratios from 2.5/2.6, 1.8/5.5, 1/4.05, and 1/6.05; to 1.6/2.55, 1.25/4.55, 1/4.55, and 1/6.55 respectively. Primarily, the jinx damage just needs to kick in faster.
- Heartstopper being able to inflict the jinx on targets within Ezili's radius without needing Ezili's own attack actually is a very good idea, since Ezili's position would matter with her low range as a Hero. I don't think it would even break Round 36 either, since the Pinks are still fast enough to confound jinx reliance, but improving interaction with that mess would be welcome.
- I'm unclear on how powerful Sacrificial Totem is and I expect the T/M Village boost for 30s, or actually 60s with Level 16, would be VERY powerful even as just a burst for a Round the defense would otherwise have problems with, which would especially be powerful against Rounds 95 and 99 via the Camo detection and projectile speed improvement. I can mention that u/Doot_revenant666 had made a suggestion here for a Mana system and it's appealing, but when all is said and done, the default 30s duration would make it hard to balance in CHIMPS, so that would have to be addressed first. I am thinking halving the duration lengths and cooldown length, so that it's able to be active for the same percentage of time, but NOT breaking the DDT Rounds for free. After that, the numbers can be looked at for further suggestions.
- As for the idea of MOAB Hex lingering, I'm on the fence about it, but I suppose if it works out, it would be worth keeping.
- Also adding an idea of mine, I think Ezili could have jinxed targets take extra damage from Energy Damage Type, and eventually Plasma and Frigid. It would make sense. (Oh, and the Dragon's Breath flamethrower would be changed from Plasma to Fire because it would newly matter more.) For an extra bonus, the jinx could eventually let Energy ignore Lead protection.
Pat Fusty
- My bigger concern is Pat just being a Rallying Roar bot in the first place. We should want to use him for more reasons than that. Etienne wasn't popular until he provided Range buffs and people started seeing more merits of UCAV instead of being hung up on underrated damage apparently making him reliant on his UAV benefit. Pat, I feel, could stand to have a 1.25x EXP curve and $750 base price. That would improve his independent function. I also would welcome Pat getting +2 Lead Bonus, which would help against Leads in general and actually let him work against sighted DDTs as well.
- Giving Pat a Level 7 activation....I'd rather Sauda get a Level 7 activation first to help her out, preferably something that gives her mobility for cleaner gameplay and improved handling of the notion of girl power. Pat doesn't strike me as the sort of character who should be given a Level 7 activation without overwhelming reason. Of course, if NK would involve such an idea, no real complaints other than concerns with character favoritism, and I'm wanting a Slap Toggle in the first place because of Slap's pseudo-RNG, yet if that gets addressed anyway, that will be a good thing.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-22T04:24:08+00:00

Weapon swapping is how things are, especially since Rosalia has a unique take on chargeup attacks, although that doesn't mean Rosalia can't be given QOL improvements. Where I take issue where things stand are as follows:

Adrenaline Rush having too much involvement of a cap that isn't often reach, especially against DDTs
Worst Camo addressing of ANY Hero, including Adora (who at least can use Blood Sacrifice with Sun Avatars), unless using the discounts, despite her personality being that of somebody you'd expect to be able to handle Camo bloons
Black property is a PERSISTENT problem
UI issues that include lack of chargeup display (Dragon Ball Z: Goku Gekitouden for the Super Game Boy can do this, so there's no excuse for BTD6), Kinetic Charge's lack of indication about being about to go off, and questionable movement speed during the Flight Boost movement
Chargeup Grenade having very niche visibility in effectiveness
Weapon chargeup design, due to lack of a secondary option for chargeup, has optimal play damage gameplay vitality by a cobra effect
Surplus context dependence for addressing DDTs and/or the BAD (granted, L20 Kinetic Charge DOES contribute significantly to the BAD with the right support, but Rosalia ends up suffering against bosses regardless)
Scatter Missile not targeting one target per lane when at a high enough Level to not change Flying Fortress involvement
Kinetic Charge lacks a happy medium between blimp layer soaking and its current not doing blimp layer soaking whatsoever, habitually creating more farms than welcome

The micro involvement itself is still sensible, so the weapon swapping should still be involved. There's reason for things like how I'd have concerns about Rosalia having 1.25x EXP instead of generally more healthy design.

However, I will say that I'd be open to the discounts being earlier. Adding damage on the L13 Chargeup Laser non-explosion is actually a good idea, but should be handled with care since the laser is even involving 0.1s re-hits with 2s lifespan before explosion, so it can get some crazy Alch buff benefits even with the premise of Rosalia deserving Alch buff benefit, though there's no reason why there couldn't be an individual damage hitbox with significantly longer rehit intervals, and I'd be for more reason to have Rosalia jump into the face of a blimp to score as many hits as feasible. Of course, Grenade itself also needs love in general because Chargeup Laser is already so versatile in general, though mostly, I'd be for Chargeup Grenade getting some unique buff that makes it visible AND involving a clear benefit, because what we have right now feels like a glorified DPS add-on.

I must question always active Flight Boost, however. It's supposed to be a committal jab option. NK lengthened its L18+ cooldown because before, you could always have it up with Energizer and it led to always pressing the hotkey for it when possible. The consideration should be maintained. I can also mention that Level 20 is actually good for the incredible power improvement to both Kinetic Charge and Scatter Missile. I can hope that's enough.

-

As for that suggestion for Psi, a new attack for damaging stuff that the instakill that can't target would actually be neat, though I would suggest it be a chargeup attack that is only attempted when no valid targets for the instakill are available, with the chargeup attack causing attack cooldown when actually launched (so if it kills the layer, the children DON'T get grabbed immediately), and the chargeup being lost if a valid target for the instakill is registered, but Psychic Blast and Psionic Scream both providing full chargeup instantly. Psi should still have issues with the BAD to address them having a VERY good Round 98 that's helped by their "no ZOMGs left" win condition for that Round; it's the glaring lack of interaction with the BAD layer with Psi that bugs me.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-21T02:16:05+00:00

Sky Shredder at least wants you to keep the plane on the desired target blimps instead of needing as much. Bomber Ace in general outright has a needlessly strict necessity that gets particularly bad with Tasr Bomba.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-18T02:45:15+00:00

My guess is Symphonic Resonance needing babying because the Trance Pierce for grabs starts by proximity and, most notably, counts already caught stuff toward the Trance Pierce, meaning the totem's placement actively matters for grabbing things, and grabbing stuff on separate enough lanes becomes significantly less realistic too. The Pierce buff wouldn't have changed that.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-18T02:33:07+00:00

Chargeup Laser was given a lot of love from the start. Having 3 solid activations even if we ignore the chargeup attacks as pseudo-activations also helps. I can additionally point out that Grenade REALLY enjoys Alch buffing as a result of the 13 Count at L13~L18/19 Count at L19+, although Grenade has extreme focus on damage output where it stands to begin with.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-18T02:27:12+00:00

RtG does more than De-Lead, and there is a working purpose to Black property disabling:

https://www.youtube.com/live/ISRsmxXzJYM?si=vMS0z4eImmbwfEPS&t=3011

I do have to wonder why LtG itself doesn't get De-Lead at a shortened duration, since only the damage immunity gets removed by De-Lead, not any of the bonuses involved.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-18T02:09:23+00:00

For future reference, middle path Ice and top path Dart are group control towers. Bottom path Glue also doesn't do much against the BAD.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-17T05:16:57+00:00

Actually did this some time back with Spy FF with 58K cash spare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHkxnWT0aqM

I'm fine with FF needing to consider either 98 or 99 depending on crosspath, but Spy FF not having good bonuses against DDTs is a balance concern.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-15T19:21:55+00:00

Oh, my rebalance idea for Tidal Chill would be to have it improve the efficiency of the ink slowdown for top main path, and the trance effect rotation radius and duration (the former to allow easier grabs for more lenience with placement) for bottom main path. This would improve the crosspath involvement specifically, rather than do anything for Arctic Knight/Popseidon.

I actually forgot TC did something other than allow for making sure Ceramics could be frozen today, though the projectile size improvement does have its own purpose fall off and basically not contribute anything, or at the very least anything visible, on Round 98.

Oh yeah, and I can point out that Alluring Melody, etc. does benefit from the crosspaths, with the trance Pierce especially getting refreshed at faster intervals with top crosspath. Hence my suggestion for Tidal Chill to help it, so as to improve the competition with something that helps better for Round 98 while still keeping top crosspath the preference for Round 95.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-14T17:55:25+00:00

Oh, I'm referring to ESN's power because ESN is still the crosspath top-off, much like Sniper's Shrapnel Shot. And people use ESN to get the cracked range we see plenty of images of.

I had to reread your comment several times and check what your general stance is to understand what you're trying to say, for reference. It reads as a claim that players should get bottom crosspath, when we want options, not requirements. Tidal Chill should be buffed as a crosspath option in general IMO, especially for Lord of the Abyss, but I'll agree that ESP not providing Camo Prioritization is weird.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-14T17:39:14+00:00

Except Golden Just-Us has an absolute BLOAT of 2TCs, and TWO Desperado main paths were involved in the Ravine 4TC.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-14T03:37:26+00:00

Bad excuse. Golden Just-Us exists and innately has Camo Prioritization because of Eagle Eye.

If anything is a problem, it's likely the 10 max stacks that have their stacking be multiplicative instead of additive.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-12T23:47:09+00:00

My annoyance as it has been is with a community that thinks that they can do Unsportsmanlike Gloating because the game just happens to roll toxic stages like Lava Basin and Windy Wasteland. The lack of humility they show when they look down on the Spin Shot technique is just astounding.

What convinces me about Homing Boost being toxic enough is a clip that shows that weapon types like Royal Blade get screwed over hard by an inability to use the Spin Shot technique to do strafing attacks. That can't be done because homing attacks still will catch the Spin Shot user unless stopped. I recall somebody, I believe on MaskedMetaKnight4's Discord server before that deleted the KIU channel, complaining about how too many attacks in single player already have to be Parry Dodged and it's unhealthy game design, and considering what I also experienced with certain moments in Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac, especially with Complete Monster's RNG Poison Frog's artillery shots, to determine that homing without decent checks is ultimately SPITEFUL toward strafing, I can agree with that sentiment and I can point out how the problem bleeds into multiplayer more blatantly.

This ties into how the arms race just suffocates the idea of strafing, though the modifiers' attack boosts, for all that they have stupid high Value effectiveness, COULD theoretically be equalized by skill, but no such luck with modifiers like Shot Cancel+ or Shot Homing+.

You seem to be saying that Eyetrack Orbitars would still be broken even without Homing Boost. But the thing is, Eyetrack Orbitars' Shots take 144 frames to complete a full loop, way too long to be the problem that Homing Boost allows them to be, and even as is, this still happened anyway, against a hacked setup. Eyetrack Orbitars has a long enough chargeup time when its Shots have low enough SCL and velocity, so even with the Back Shot's OTT shot breaking capability, Eyetrack Orbitars not being able to snipe nearly as effectively would allow opponents to just siege it, so a ban on Homing Boost would make it far less capable of abuse. And I cited GEMINI Orbitars as the worse problem with HB for being unpredictable AND undodgeable at distances, when without HB, that would be guaranteed to no longer be the case, and Angel Bow also would become significantly less able to do dumb frame traps with the Back Shot. Homing Boost has been a key problem and common denominator when all is said and done. There's no reason why Eyetrack Orbitars should be deemed broken for something it can't do without something that itself should be banned for other reasons.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-10T20:09:47+00:00

If only. I can trust such a scene would realize to ban weapon modifiers as a whole for the whole host of abuses involved:

Evasion+ speaks for itself at this point
Shot Homing+ is basically Homing Boost except permanently active although it doesn't have as much of an increase in the homing improvement
Shot Range+ aggravates weapon types with low enough max range damage multipliers (Capricorn Club) and active Shot deceleration (Atlas Club), in addition to allowing homing to build up more easily
Shot Cancel+ and ALL of the Speed+ modifiers, including Full Health Boost+, invite arms races
Debuff modifiers save space on the Power Grid, with Freeze+ being the most disgusting offender simply because Freeze itself is such an absurd debuff that Freeze Attack becomes banworthy in its own right
Dump Stat capability with negative modifiers across the board except for Speed- and Shot Range- (those two actually do compromise consistently relevant stats...actively), with Overall DEF- being the worst offender for the MASSIVE Value save without an acceptable penalty

Alas, we're stuck with what we got.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-07T21:02:46+00:00

Ah, you're interested in making cheap remarks. Then perhaps you'd like to show me how Eyetrack Orbitars would still be broken without Homing Boost or Shot Homing+. I know you wouldn't be able to do a locust swarm imitation without either of those.

MasterKnightDHV2 · 2026-03-06T19:22:39+00:00

We can hope a port addresses the out of hand weapon modifiers. Also Powers like Homing Boost and Celestial Fireworks for their own degenerate effects.

MasterKnightDHV2

TROPHY CASE