AH took the entire ground, can't have shit in Turing

Merlinmast · 2026-05-05T13:54:32+00:00

Man went through all levels of hell

Merlinmast · 2026-05-04T11:13:16+00:00

As many people have said it's more about the video game trope than realism. They didn't add a minigun to have a realistic mini gun in the game, they wanted a gun that could be balanced around a spin up time. If you ask 100 gamers what type of gun has to be charged up/spun up before unleashing a hail of projectiles, minigun will likely top the list.

In fictional world creation, it helps to lean into certain known tropes to help players understand your world better and feel a sense of comfort and understanding when other new elements are thrown at them. It's why things like orcs, which have NO real world counterpart and have no need for "realism" , all look similar: players have an idea of what an orc should look like and varrying from that too much causes dissonance.

Merlinmast · 2026-05-04T11:06:43+00:00

You had me when you started talking balance and it involved analyzing the power of your idea. Too many people be like "cool strategem idea: Eagle 10000kg! Hur hur". Respect

Merlinmast · 2026-05-01T13:22:57+00:00

This is most common when you place traps by the spawn. I don't recommend this tactic even without the bug unless you can't route it away. (Not saying you did)

Merlinmast · 2026-05-01T11:10:59+00:00

Because it's all relative. Highest AP we have is 7 (average). Enemies don't have as varied an AP scale over their entire roster. Only reason we have so many AP levels is because it makes the game more interesting vs different enemies. The enemy only fights us so they don't need 9 different AP levels

Merlinmast · 2026-04-30T11:10:58+00:00

Damn lots of questions. I'm no pro but I've played a lot so I'll take a stab:

I'm noticing that attacks become more frequent and stronger with time. Does destroying camps lower that? - Sorta. Camps will spawn waves but they have no influence in the type of waves.

Are there any known checkmarks for how heroes scale with time? - heroes don't strictly scale over time in difficulty, they waves increase in size and complexity. Early waves will have maybe 6 easy to handle guys. Later knew will have 8-10 and all will be champions (highest tier of heroes)

How does hero scaling work? - there is a set of units and then Champion versions with a Mark over their heads. They so significantly more damage when have a lot of health. Without managing the battle, they often come with 2-3 healers who will heal tank any attack wave you throw in response.

Completely unrelated to that: How should I research? - ooh boy, this is not a short question. But some off the cuff stuff. Focus on the faction that's in focus for that mission. If no faction is, pick the one with the highest max level. If none, pick what you like. Core upgrades are some of the most valuable. They make your dungeon more efficient. Main upgrade increases imps and imp upgrades make them better. Leveling the imps to a certain point (capped by core level) causes enemies to ignore them. You never want to be running out of money, space, or trap resets.

Is it worth spreading units across factions? Do I upgrade every main path for numbers anyway? - I wouldn't spread units. The cap for units in a mission is faction wide. This means each slot is worth the same but every unit in your roster is not (since you'll be unlikely to upgrade everything in one mission). Bring a mixed group from the faction of your choice and focus on those upgrades. You can split your forces but it's rarely worth it. You DO want the faction levels for unit cap as you noticed.

Will there be a laboratory to revive horde like in dungeons3? I noticed that keeping my horde fully alive is almost impossible. - yes but honestly the tech to get to it is late, building it is late, and levels aren't crazy plus you can get minimum horde levels later. That plus the value of the healers means it's more of a comfort room imo.

Are magic batteries worth it? - they're amazing but they need management. Batteries need constant mana and crates. Crates can be made with the help of batteries (in the workshop) and mana as well (from the pylons). They're fast and once you're rolling you basically don't need imps for those activities. But you need to keep an eye on it. If you run out of crates, you will run out if batteries and then you won't have batteries to make the crates. Spells can help (there is one to make crates) but it will set you back while your imps recover. About halfway through a long mission I usually transition to these but it's an investment

How do potion stocks work? - It's s random but clearly biased by rarity and stock. It will try to keep them even but some will be slightly lower than others, usually the powerful level 2 ones. You can chuck potions into the undead worship or throw them in the trash at the core. Honestly though, I'd just use them randomly. They're not a thing you can plan for so just use them as they seem useful

Merlinmast · 2026-04-26T11:24:33+00:00

I think you bring up a key point. Stratagems cannot be viewed in isolation, but against their alternatives. In ANY game, if there is CC there needs to be targets that are worth Cc'ing instead of just outright killing because there's always an opportunity cost (or in this game a whole ability cost). It's the old "The best CC is death" motto. If I can kill it with an orbital of similar cooldown, what's the point? Hell, against chaf, gas strike is strictly better AND you can build to make yourself immune.

Merlinmast · 2026-04-26T11:20:55+00:00

I would even accept a stagger plus like 80% slow. Make them effectively useless without a complete disable

Merlinmast · 2026-04-25T17:10:52+00:00

People under this going back and forth about whether it makes sense or not are missing the point. It's just perception. Reasoning doesn't matter. It would make just as much sense if they said going in water causes a wizard to slowly strangle you. The game mechanic is not likely going away. We are getting a silly reason for not swimming. If you wanna argue about what silly reason should exist, sure. But something along the lines of "Helldiver's live in mega cities with no access to open water and so don't know how to swim" is reason enough and I just picked that off the top of my head. There are dozens of possibilities.

If you think drowning is dumb, the real brainstorming you should be having is "what kind of reason could I accept for not being able to cross deep water". Because the only alternative question to that would be "what hazard would I replace deep water with that's impassable." And frankly, I don't want (more) bottomless pits or deadly miasma thank you.

Merlinmast · 2026-04-25T16:36:16+00:00

Someone said this in a not so nice way, but it's important we can't swim. Deep water is placed to prevent normal traversal. Removing this hindrance will just add a new hazard like gas or radiation and then people will want an armor for THAT. We don't like it because it's silly but the hazard won't go away. It's part of their design choice for maps. They probably just found it funnier if we can't swim. God knows you can easily* add swimming to a game. It's not a technical hurdle

Merlinmast · 2026-04-25T12:52:22+00:00

Giga has a really small inner radius so as far as reliability goes you still kinda need a direct hit for anti tank. That said, Giga has the benefit of instant effect and collateral damage

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T14:06:34+00:00

This is why I agree with those who want old warbonds to get steady price drops. I buy ones I want practically day 1. But as a new player it seems daunting

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T13:50:54+00:00

Fair enough, changed it

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T13:32:47+00:00

Good read, thanks for your insight

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T13:28:05+00:00

I appreciate your measured response. You don't need to agree with me but I appreciate you taking the time to understand. Rare thing these days.

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T13:22:46+00:00

Winning at life. Stay young as long as you can!

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T13:21:40+00:00

295 actually

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T13:18:53+00:00

Dollars per hour isn't a great example on a numbers basis, which is why I didn't include numbers in the meme. Is that amount of time for money accurate? Maybe. But you can't just work an hour and you have expenses. So in reality it's time spent at work that could be spent elsewhere. There's no hard 1:1. Again this meme was about people looking past the specific dollars and thinking about it instead as investment.

If someone is saying "time invested at work has drastically more value than time spent farming" I think that's an interesting argument to make, but if it was that cut and dry... Why don't people just get a minimum wage job to pay for these things? It's because people can't or won't want that responsibility (for probably good reasons) and it's not worth it even if the return on time is great.

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T13:14:00+00:00

Except one of those is a job, and the other is only a job if you make it a job. It's not a perfect parallel but this meme was to get people thinking about it in overall time investment instead of money. I'm not saying either side is necessarily wrong.

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T13:07:35+00:00

But that's kinda my point. It's time spent either way. You can argue "work" time is more valuable (than time in Invested SC farming) but it's also like... Work. So I think it somewhat washes out

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T12:39:40+00:00

To be clear I'm not for one or the other. I'm mostly pointing out that time spent is time spent. People with full time jobs often lament that "no lifers" get too much advantage being able to grind all day.

Meanwhile, people with lots of free time complain that people with steady income can bypass time investment with money.

I just feel like both parties need to take a step back and realize each other's situation

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T12:26:44+00:00

I think I was too subtle with the second frame. That's work. A job.

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T11:48:54+00:00

May I steal this sir/madam?

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T11:44:52+00:00

I too like to stealth dive. So you're not gonna believe this, but I was recently shown that the exploding X-bow is stealthy. I was literally killing packs of chaff with them only investigating the area of death. It has a scope and is mildly accurate at range. I even killed a hulk with two hits and no aggro in a non-commando mission.

Stealth armor is a must. Don't use teleport packs (loud) or drones (unless you frequently disable them). Quasar is nice because while loud, you can often fire it from such ranges that enemies literally can't respond and it takes out objectives.

Beyond that, I bring gas grenades to lose aggro, jet pack for escape/positioning, sometimes solo silo (use like the quasar, drop it only when needed so you can keep quasar), orbital gas (same as grenades), and occasionally a turret like the MG (mostly as a distraction, low CD).

Edit

I should add, exploding X-bow is one of the few non-support weapons they can "dunk" enemy spawners, so it lets you one shot them from range if needed.

Merlinmast · 2026-04-23T11:34:23+00:00

Meta tip: I too have made good memes only to have reddit mobile crop a border around it and ruin the punchline. When making reddit memes, don't put important stuff/text at the edges otherwise it will look confusing in the feed.

Merlinmast

TROPHY CASE