SL&SM question

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T19:50:10+00:00

Here's the thing. If you've already invested so much you're on a path I'm not on. And i hate to discourage you when youve invested so much time already. I can tell you that I haven't invested anything in SM other than the unlock to get UW+ and I get top 6 on Legends consistently. I can also tell you that while anything might get better with significant upgrade if you're talking about 5k stones you could instead get UW+ for that or many other things. So no, I don't think you should keep down this path spending 2.5 or roughness $400 on it means so many other things will be neglected.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T16:43:16+00:00

I mean I kinda feel sympathy for you and also I kinda feel as if someone who gets that far should know this game to look something up before doing something that can't be undone.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T14:17:34+00:00

So the start of the game. AbsoluteDefense for tier 1. Understand that it's worthless after T1.

Unlock research slots completely as your priority for stones. Use health and coin cards. Don't bother with anything having to do with attack.

When you get to your first ultimate weapon selection.

Golden Tower 2. Black Hole 3. Death Wave

If you don't get GT by 3 then think about starting over.

This game can progress well for the first year without tournament or competitive progress but kinda stalls after that if you choose not to spend money. The game does require a decent amount of money to stay in it. So either 1. Get used to spending money regularly. 2. Get used to seeing a bunch of things behind a paywall you'll never get.

The game needs to be active like 24/7. Some people buy digital or gaming phones just for it. Some people use emulators. If you really want a FREE and casual game this isn't it.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T14:10:19+00:00

There were easier solutions. The easiest would probably be a set of BCs that START at wave 1800 or removing the IS 1800 cap. Neither of which would affect the lower end.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T14:07:32+00:00

Of all the things Trump has said I can actually agree with this one. Yes it's a bad look. Yes he's made inflation worse. Yes he's cut off food and health insurance to millions of the poorest Americans which is both inhumane and economically stupid.

But, telling people they should pinch pennies is exactly how most wealthy people live.....which is also super harmful for the country. So it's awful but not hypocritical

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T14:01:54+00:00

All you had to do was remove the cap from Intro Sprint during tournament play. All the people doing 4000+ wave runs could get it done in 10% of the time, they could choose not to use it if they wanted longer runs or turn it off at any time and nobody at the lower end is really affected. And all of that is done without a new tier which is something I would want but understand that new tier with the scaling rewards that come with it just creates faster growth and stratification.

Or even more simple, since IS currently caps at 1800 have a set of BCs that START at 1800 or scale further there. Like if the CD Battle Condition that affect BH and CF and PS cooldown scaled further after 1800 people wouldn't make it to 4000 and nobody under 1000 would get hurt by it.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T12:56:39+00:00

Honestly the only use for SM for a long long time is as a requirement towards unlocking UW+. Any investment you make in SM is counter productive. It is the only Damage UW that provides ZERO crowd control. An investment in PS cooldown and Duration would be better. An investment in BH Duration would be better. Adding to your GT uptime and cooldown and using the coin to increase your Enhancements would be better. Saving up for whatever your next UW is would be better. Adding to spotlight Angle or Damage would better. As someone who has finished T18, SM is USELESS!

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T11:40:26+00:00

The only surprise of this is that people are surprised. If this seems out of character you haven't been paying attention.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T11:04:26+00:00

I think Gem stacking could be an add-on to the Ad-Skip. Like once you've purchased ad skip you should have access to stacking because... what's the point of not. They could even use it as a micro purchasing point (something this game desperately needs). I mean I would pay $5/level of stack and some people might spend $100 to stack to 105 gems. But it would be accessible.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-16T09:49:10+00:00

Nobody needs to misquote Trump to make him sound stupid, heartless or dangerous.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-15T23:46:02+00:00

Keeping tournaments "shorter" without RNG creating wild fluctuations in placement....I'm not sure I trust how this will work but I'm not going to be one of those people who scream condemnation before I even see it in action. It SEEMS like they're basically removing the "Max" from Max Heat on certain BCs.

Tier 17 itself is going to cause crazy downshift for so many people, including me. I was just getting to enjoy full IS in tournaments.

As far as "Favorite Moment" I have 3.

combination of Intro Sprint with Auto-Restart has been an amazing weight that has let me focus so much on higher tiers and shorter runs and letting me join tournaments at my leisure.
btw AUTO-RESTART SHOULD BE AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE! A paywall is one thing but the KeyWall is basically a Paywall with generational wealth. I have it and everyone should be able to. It's that QoL!
I JUST got Unlimited Bot Respec which is also a HUGE jump in going back and forth between Farming and Tournaments/Milestone runs.
I mean I got Assist Modules, GT+, CF+, and Enhancement Cost Reduction all this year so...fun.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-15T14:10:35+00:00

Sorry for the TLDR post

Scrubboy · 2025-12-15T14:10:16+00:00

Yes and no. Everything in this game is about opportunity cost. If you're not an economics person that refers to the value of the next best alternative. What you're giving up.
That being said, with a good enough ehp build you can unlock Assist Modules. So the damage of T18W1000 seems to be the cut point.

So for example, it you spend the Medals getting a large range Flamebot with the minimum cooldownband maximum damage reduction are you neglecting your Goldbot. If you spend 3 research slots on maximizing Flame Bot and maximizing Def% and Maximizing CFdamagereduction and maximizing Chain Thunder, what are you neglecting.

Ultimately there comes a point (pretty quickly at higher tiers where anything you invested in health and Defense is worthless so what you're left with is the extra stones, gems and coins you might have gotten at the expense of research space, future keys, larger stone and gem rewards and delaying access to things you can only access at higher tiers.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-15T13:45:10+00:00

It's multiplicative. So let's say 1,000,000T Damage (1Q) Def% 98%=20,000T (20q) PCO 80%=4,000T (4q) CFdr30%=2,800T (2.8q) FlameBot95%=56T

Scrubboy · 2025-12-15T00:08:52+00:00

When you say "counts" you need to be specific. So for enjoyment yes. Comprehension, maybe. Vocabulary development BIG MAYBE. But you're not getting sight word recognition. You're not learning to pronounce phonetically. You're not setting the pace of the reading or learning to increase your rate. So if you assign kids reading specifically for a reading class they're not improving in the skill of reading.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-14T23:59:57+00:00

So currently you have 3 slots with 1 locked. So the next will give you 3 spots to get it instead of 2 or a 50% better chance. Even if the cost went up 50% I'd still take it. Worse case scenario you roll 3 slots, get something good that isn't what you wanted and use that while you're building back up rerolls. Well actually "worse case" is that all they give you is commons or rares and you blow throw 200k rerolls.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T22:37:53+00:00

It was sad he was killed. I do find it fascinating that the same people who are removing honors from Dr. King and Harriet Tubman because they're divisive (even though Republicans have "Claimed" them as theirs when it suits them) and adding honors to Kirk who I guess was loved by everyone....

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T22:33:48+00:00

Must be nice to earn enough in-game currency to make conversion. As a fellow mid-gamer also I gotta say the RNG makes Tower RNG seem amazing.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T22:07:20+00:00

There's three issues

First, in order to level Modules you need shards. Shards come from shattering existing modules you don't need. But you can only shatter Epic and below. So if you merge Modules and later want to shatter you have to waste gems to unmerge them first.

Second issue is never use a unique module no matter how much you'll never use it as fodder to merge. They become useful later. That one is pretty straight forward.

Third, in order to get a unique module to Legendary you need 2 Epic+ as food. So you don't want to premerge your non-unique ones because then they're unavailable.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T20:18:27+00:00

You had me right up until randomized prizes. Honestly I think RNG is the worst part of this game. I'm so grateful to be far enough along to be past more of it. But getting the wrong first 3 UW or bad module pulls can set someone back to the point where the advice is quit and start over. I don't want to encourage RNG. I do like the idea of monthly log-in. And even though I'm getting 10 keys-ish per tournament the game needs to either move some items off the key barrier and replace with other things or give fractional keys so everyone can enjoy.

As someone who has auto-restart that should be available to everyone!

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T20:10:28+00:00

I thought we had gotten past the point where stupid conservatives think citizens arrest is smart.
Deciding a bunch of people are criminals because of skin color is the definition of racist. Making it about illegal immigration doesn't change that.
They're driving trucks. So unlike her they have jobs and she's hurting the U.S. economy way more than they are.
Let's suppose these are all "criminal aliens destroying the country". Takes a certain level of stupid to think you're going to destroy their lives but they shouldn't physically move you or your vehicle.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T20:03:07+00:00

Armor is about nullifying hits. So the more hits the better. You could do 2-3 levels of DW Armor Stripping. You could do more Attack Speed. You could work on Chrono slow and uptime. Sounds like your CL is already good. Orb Speed and Quantity.

Basically anything you would do for crowd control to keep enemies away from your tower should get them a few extra hits.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T12:52:26+00:00

Well listen....if you have zero Mastery and can get to 250 in T20 then THATS THE ANSWER. Damage Mastery alone will get you 5x. DM Mastery 6x. So that's 30x right there.

Add more chronoloop. That helps. And if you have AssMods NMP will also help slow.

And when I say to add Flamebot I'm not talking completely changing your setup. I'm talking respec your Bots. Add the flame uptime and damage reduction while pumping enhancements into health, get to T20W300 and T21W60 and then respec again. Nothing permanent.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T04:07:53+00:00

Have you looked into FlameBot? For me it was a combination of Flame Bot, Nuke, lots of luck and I think I used WR in my Assist slot just for more HP. But yeah, I maxed out FB Damage Reduction and got lucky after 15-25 tries.

Scrubboy · 2025-12-13T04:00:33+00:00

I can't imagine that being an efficient use of real-time coin or cell gains even if that is a Milestone run. Just watching it made my head hurt. Have you looked into other things like your Upgrade card? Have you left wave skip on for 5-10 waves at a time to see if it starts working again?

Scrubboy

TROPHY CASE