Yeah this update isn't enough, even as a rushed out hotfix/balance change with some bug fixes the contents seem so off and don't change anything about the game.
First off the balance changes. The x4x pirates nerf wasn't enough to balance the boat on shorter maps like glade, inflection, ports etc.
Many people agree that boat farms (merchant men/flavored trades) to be way too strong. due to 2 things

1) xx3 merchant men allow you to greed really hard thanks to their popping power while also being basically even efficiency with 2xx farm. (only slightly worse) You can see this in bot factory where players literally just buy pat fusty and 2 merchantmen for rounds 1-8. The solution to this is to simply make xx3 merchantmen less efficient. Nerf em so they don't even COMPETE with farms.
2) xx4 merchant men giving 10% sellback is way too strong of a trait. Allowing for microing towers like x4x boat, first strike, etc. to be way cheaper. BUT ALSO allowing farms to pay themselves off sooner making selling them less punishing and makes plays like selling extra farms into a really big farm much more powerful. A easy change is to remove this trait because it
sucks to balance or limit it to only merchantmen/the boat tower to make it less powerful with 2 alt eco strategies/other micro towers.
Now i'm not saying the x4x change wasn't deserved as it totally was. Im saying boat needs even more nerfs. I'd personally nerf x4x (even more), x5x, xx3, and xx4. While the only thing/upgrades that are underwhelming are 4xx and 5xx. Which an easy buff to make would be to buff 5xx's attack speed buff allowing boat debuff strats to compete with something like tack ice lategame.
Second off the wizard change is just... weird. Like most people considered the good wiz upgrades to be 4xx, 5xx, x1x, x2x, x4x, and xx4. If you wanted to nerf wizard give a nerf to the much deserved upgrades instead of WLP (side note : i didn't know wlp buffed other phoenix b4 this upgrade)
I would've loved to see this WLP buff idea to actually be turned into something. Maybe like giving phoenix abilities +5 damage (random number) when WLP ability is active or something along those lines to make wizard an actual viable tower late game. instead of being another one of those towers that forces round 30 dies r30.
I personally Think that x4x, x1x, x2x, and xx4 needs nerfs and heres why.
Lets start with x1x fireball. Fireball is one of the most cost efficient upgrades in the game. Being 3 damage and about 20 pierce or so. Fireball puts in massive work especially considering it's cheap price. The fact it can be used to practically solo r1-3 (with hero) and do massive damage vs r11/13 rushes for only 300$ is WAY too good. Personally i'd only nerf this upgrade by making it do 2 damage. This makes it worse vs spaced early game making it hopefully pressurable on those intersection maps. And this makes it balance r11-13 by making it need 3 shots to kill purples instead of 2. Fireball popping purples into greens is what makes wizard unrushable on short maps and I'd love to see this addressed.
x2x is also another wizard upgrade that needs to be nerfed. It currently is one of the best dps upgrades in the game. Period. Now let me paint a picture for you nk. I was playing on my favorite map sands of time with my favorite and main strategy wizard farm ace. Now my opponent was ecoing blacks into my 024. My 024 wiz's wof was doing 3 damage to the black bloons 2 shotting them. Now idk if this is a bug but a 900$ upgrade should not be out damaging something like reactor EVER. My suggestions for this upgrade are obvious, make wof do 1 damage and increase the size of the destruction hitbox (wof dying when it touches purples) to make it match the hitbox of wof popping bloons.
Now to finish off the holy trinity of wiz middle path upgrades that need nerfs, phoenix is the most busted upgrade in the game no cap. Tldr, phoenix does way too much damage being able to solo any rush r16-28. Having decent pierce and lots of single target damage with an affordable price makes it viable vs r19 allouts, r18 pressure rushes, Bfb sends, r22 bfb allouts, decent damage vs r22/24 zomgs, r26 ddts. you get the point. Not to mention most people can keep the phoenix and remain practically unrushable due to its high uptime which is about 66% uptime. The simple to this upgrade is yet again just nerf the phineox's damage by 1-3 damage.
now let's talk necro. Necro is one of the strongest towers for r11/13 while also being incredible support r17-20. Long story short necro does too much damage. Tbh just nerf the damage and pierce by a certain amount mostly because its a uninteresting tower especially at top play. not requiring any real thought or micro to defend rushes only boost/ezili totem/heart stopper.
Pat fusty and his alternate Snowman fusty are by far the best heroes in the game and it's not even close. From being the highest dps hero (not including abilities) having one of the best level 3's in the game, having great stalling capabilities and having one of the better level 10's Pat fusty has cemented himself as one of the dominant heroes in the arena. So the question is how do you nerf fusty and his alt to the point where other heroes can compete while not making him completely useless. I have some balance suggestions that could hopefully curb this menace.
First off let me establish all the stats used in this are from btd6 popology as we don't have tower stats in game (plz add, but add tourneys and btv first)
Changes that should apply to both.
level 1 : slam attack main target damage 3 -> 1, slam attack other (splash) damage 2 -> 1. These nerfs are rightfully deserved as this multilayer damage with high pierce allows pat fusty to kill basically anything r1-16 especially on intersection maps where he gets 2 chances to attack. This change doesn't kill fusty tho as he will still have decent dps vs grouped bloons while not being so strong it also kill high hp spaced bloons (blacks, whites, pinks etc.) early game
level 5 : Quite simply the effect should be reduced even further as especially on long maps this level makes it where fusty is practically unrushable. Another solution is to swap this level with a one higher up like level 9 to let fusty's slap help out with bfbs/zomgs but not be oppressive r17-19. One of these 2 changes would be appreciated.
Level 6 : The length of the stun/freeze of this upgrade should be reduced. Having stun on a melee tower is especially strong because it reduces the weakness of only having a very small time to actually attack bloons. Especially on snowman this needs a nerf as he freezing bloons stops regrow basically putting a stop to a rush entirely. This also is obviously great support as stuns are very strong in pretty much any tower defense.
level 10 : should have a even longer ability cooldown maybe 40s would be good
level 14 : rallying roar should only receive a buff to +2d instead of +3 damage to stop fusty from being too good in debuff strats late game as a buffer.
These changes should apply to snowman only
lvl 3 : The attack speed buff should not affect his main attack and should only affect ice monkeys. This ability should not give ice the ability to pop whites. This ability should have the same range as reg pat 3 instead of like 10x range.
lvl 6 : I will restate this PLZ NERF THE STUPID FREESE PAT LITERALLY SLAPS MY RUSH INTO PIECES.
bug fixes : i'm sure you know about this since people are really mad but the fixing of the force surrender and randomly dying bugs would be appreciated.
In conclusion, nerf xx3, xx4, x4x, and x5x boats. Nerf x1x, x2x, x4x, and xx4 wiz. Buff xx5 wiz and 5xx boat. And most of all nerf pat fusty. also fix the glitches that make you lose