Lightning viable?

[Friesen]

Been playing with all lightning lvl 5-7. Doesn't seem to be as good as fire traps. Withought a lightning resonator am I stuck with fire for late game?

[Knight]

Hmm... This is an intersting question... I tried out Shock Zapper, t4 mind you, Its okay, I feel like it didnt have a lot of impact to play... I could be remembeirng wrong... Lightning Rod takes a while, when first placed it does not chain, it just zapps once and then recharges, after a few waves of fireing it starts to chain. I think thats how it works anyway... I've seen people use Wall Charger here and there, but between the high cost and the long recharge time between fireing its a so so trap. Nice perst damage but hurts at the same time in both coin and speed. I'd say mix and match Lightning with something else, like fire, or perhaps physical traps. Mixing it with ice traps might also be intersting, beinga able to slow down minion s and keep them bunched togeather so that if lightning kills them they explode dealing splash damage.

[chuckberts]

my tests went as badly as the numbers look in workshop
Swinging mace 2000 gold covering 3 spots. 250damage/5 seconds = 50 damage a second across a 3 zone area hitting all targets in the area.
Shock Zapper - 2000 gold for 1 spot, 350damage/4.7seconds = 74.46 damage.

if there is even a mere 2 units in swinging maces radius then it does more damage than shock zapper, and as everybody knows there are a lot more than 1 or 2 units in a killbox at a time.


Wall Charge - 255 damage/9.5 seconds = 26.84 damage per second for 1,250 gold
Wall Blades - 250 damage/9.4 seconds = 26.59 damage for ONLY 750 gold

Unless you possess some insane luck where your lightning traps keep getting all the kills instead of your heros/other traps they are mathetically a total waste. You are much better off using Fire/Physical combo w/ resonators.

[Knight]

Well, that explains pretty well why people dont use Lightning traps... lol

[Knight]

Originally posted by chuckberts:

my tests went as badly as the numbers look in workshop
Swinging mace 2000 gold covering 3 spots. 250damage/5 seconds = 50 damage a second across a 3 zone area hitting all targets in the area.
Shock Zapper - 2000 gold for 1 spot, 350damage/4.7seconds = 74.46 damage.

if there is even a mere 2 units in swinging maces radius then it does more damage than shock zapper, and as everybody knows there are a lot more than 1 or 2 units in a killbox at a time.


Wall Charge - 255 damage/9.5 seconds = 26.84 damage per second for 1,250 gold
Wall Blades - 250 damage/9.4 seconds = 26.59 damage for ONLY 750 gold

Unless you possess some insane luck where your lightning traps keep getting all the kills instead of your heros/other traps they are mathetically a total waste. You are much better off using Fire/Physical combo w/ resonators.

What about Lightning Rod?

[Knight]

That sucks... When I first started playing this game I seen lightning traps and was like... Mmm Zappy zappers nice... And really wanted to play with them But after a while I seen very few people accualey play with them and once I started getting them I figured out why, for the most part... *sigh* sadness....

[Mez Koo]

I really want to try lightning traps, but I am still waiting for Lightning Deals trait because they are just way too much coin.

[Mecha-Sol]

If you check out the new Patch Notes for PC you will see that the 3 Lightning Traps get a slight buff in range, they will now also work on higher ceillings and make them maybe a bit more interesting on some maps. I have yet to realy test them, cause I keep not getting them out of chests, so they are T3...

[chuckberts]

Originally posted by Knight:

What about Lightning Rod?

That one is mess... but I'll give a shot. Base damage is only 16.34dps for 500 gold, but after 8 attacks the 9th attack (so once every 41.6 seconds) it chains to 3 enemies w/ no specification on decaying damage for each chain.

Due to the cost of gold being 1/4 the others, 16.34x4 = 65.36 dps equivalent based on cost. Thats not counting the chain damage, but shock shock zappers 74.46 dps doesn't count in its explosion damage if it gets a kill, and it should at least kill something in the 41.6 seconds it takes for lightning rod to get chain. So Lightning rod not only loses to Shock Zapper on damage, it costs 4x the amnt of trap limit as shock zapper.

In the end lightning rod will fail not because of the damage so much as you will run out of trap limit and can't increase your kill boxes damage enough to actually kill the waves.

[Knight]

Originally posted by chuckberts:

Originally posted by Knight:

What about Lightning Rod?

That one is mess... but I'll give a shot. Base damage is only 16.34dps for 500 gold, but after 8 attacks the 9th attack (so once every 41.6 seconds) it chains to 3 enemies w/ no specification on decaying damage for each chain.

Due to the cost of gold being 1/4 the others, 16.34x4 = 65.36 dps equivalent based on cost. Thats not counting the chain damage, but shock shock zappers 74.46 dps doesn't count in its explosion damage if it gets a kill, and it should at least kill something in the 41.6 seconds it takes for lightning rod to get chain. So Lightning rod not only loses to Shock Zapper on damage, it costs 4x the amnt of trap limit as shock zapper.

In the end lightning rod will fail not because of the damage so much as you will run out of trap limit and can't increase your kill boxes damage enough to actually kill the waves.

Alright cool, I was wondering because I've seen some people use it here and there but didnt know if it was any better or worse.

[Dandel]

Thanks for all the math chuckberts, helps make choices easier.

Originally posted by Sol:

If you check out the new Patch Notes for PC you will see that the 3 Lightning Traps get a slight buff in range, they will now also work on higher ceillings and make them maybe a bit more interesting on some maps. I have yet to realy test them, cause I keep not getting them out of chests, so they are T3...

Range wasn't even one of the issues discussed. That's not going to change anything.

They could lower the cost of the traps to make them slightly more appealing, but it's not going to change how they perform, which is the most unappealing part.

[MeatShake]

Does electricity apply a debuff where they explode on death? If not it should that would be fantastic.

[chuckberts]

Originally posted by MeatShake:

Does electricity apply a debuff where they explode on death? If not it should that would be fantastic.

Debuff no. I recommended that in a thread a long time ago but no luck w/ that request. In order for the effect to trigger the lightning trap must land the killing blow. It dies to your heros attack .01 seconds later after the attack, nothing.

[Knight]

yeah, Lightning is just not worth looking at.

[76561198369822674]

The explosion on death effect is highly undervalued.

It deals both flat health and percent health damage.

[Dandel]

About that:

What is the chance of the explosion occurring?
What is the damage of the explosion?
How wide is the explosion?

Regardless, as chuckberts explained, they're really not worth it.