lucifer

[Name Lips]

I want him to be worthwhile, mainly because he looks cool and I like flamethrowers, but I can't find a good role for him.

Close range aoe, can't fire over walls, immune to fire, causes friendly fire damage, and the same oil cost/upkeep as Thanatos (thanatos does cost iron too, but I've never had the problem of "lots of oil but no iron" ).

They seem useless for defense, which means they must be for offense. But they can't synergize well with other units because of the friendly fire risk, so they need to be massed with each other. They seem vulnerable to all special zombies.

In theory they could guard a choke point against a horde of regular zombies, if walls aren't up in that area.

I'm surprised at the friendly fire thing, since the other aoe units don't suffer from it. If it wasn't for friendly fire, I'd feel OK mixing them in with soldiers just for the aoe damage.

maybe they're intended to be a tank for longer range units like snipers?

But as far as I can tell, an equal number of Thanatos would always be a better bet.

[ToxicCalamari]

Originally posted by Setzway:

Originally posted by Granberia:

a reduction in venoms range forcing him to get in range of other units like soldier or titan could make sniper less of a god tier unit that He is.

But I dunno If that would solve the issue. It would open up viability of other units in last wave though as spitters would have to get closer to,the shock towers then, but I dunno,

Feels like that special might need a bit more attention

Yeah, I dunno either.

Though I agree that Venoms need to be looked at or something. They definately seem to be the root cause of the current "Meta" right now.

Amen to that.


Now as for Lucifer, make him a mobile wall. Highest armored unit available, and a respectable health pool. Make him move at the speed of sniper perhaps and increase his flame thrower range and come. Remove his ability to not fire through walls too.

Essentially make him a slow moving attraction grabber and aggro manager, a way to funnel enemies to a very specific part of your defense line. While not doing much damage himself his flashy weapon will drag infected to him and into your executors. That could give him a use id say. Will he outdo thana in aoe? Never. Hence why making,him an aggro manager and filling his own,niche may help

[Venrez]

I reckon Lucifers should be able to be placed in Towers - and when in a Tower, can fire over the Wall.

Lucifers in a Tower should take 2 unit spots, meaning you could only have 2 in a single Tower at most.

The extra Tower range would prove quite useful for burning out long lines of Zombies building up at a narrow gateway or corridor.

Effectively unit-based Shock Towers.

- - -

And yes, I believe Zombie Acid-Spitters are far, far, far too powerful.

They may be glass cannons but that point is irrelevant given the sheer number of Zombies in most engagements.

[boxxer1]

The only thing lucifer needs is immunity to spitters. His job is to stand in front of a horde, but he cannot do that if spitters can kill him.

[stone]

I was against lucifer for the first couple games, but now he's one of my favorites, because he is the best anti-horde solution for the massive late game hordes of non-special zombies due to his ability to deal massive damage for relatively little gold upkeep, and I often find gold (and stone) to often be my limiting factor. The Thanatos kills large groups at a time and is a must have, but they've a slow rate of fire, so the walls can take quite a bit of damage inbetween shots. The Titan is basically a mobile executioner, so it's good for exploring, but it's kind of redundant and expensive to have too many.

The trick to lucifer is to have them always shoot the same way, and have other units take out the special units. I put them against the wall, have the wall come out to cover him on either side, put wire traps beneath him (just 3-4), and have a dozen or so snipers in towers with their priority on the higher level zombies. On the final wave, the ones facing the main wave would kill hundreds of the normal zombies, which really took the sting out of otherwise worrisome waves, and the ones facing the minor waves didn't even die. Also, having one behind a wall to "plug" any leaks in the wall has saved my life a few times, because they kill non-special zombies as fast as they come.

I don't bother buying them until after day 60 or so, and even then I only keep a few per side, but they do make a huge difference and I make sure to have a few.

[Celebrim]

Anything that nerfs the infected makes the game drastically easier. Venom are fine how they are. If they were weaker, you'd face roll.

What I meant was: I think unit composition is supposed to fix this. Melee can't close by themselves, so you bring ranged units to cover them etc.

Unit composition doesn't work. I can barely think of a RTS that unit composition is actually a thing. In most RTS, you play rock-paper-scissors, and if they spam rock, then you spam paper, and so forth. Only the zombies can't and don't play, so that isn't going to work.

The thing about unit composition is that if some unit is effective, more of that unit is even more effective. And right now, long ranged units have no counter. They have no weakness. Nothing really messes with them. I can think of things that would mess with them, but they'd be pretty drastic changes to the current gameplay.

[Celebrim]

Originally posted by Disturbed:

Doesnt make much sense to me tbh...
Sry, but these buffs wouldnt make me trains Lucis.

Any buff that would make you train something would be by definition power creep. Any buff that shifted the meta that much would be too much of a buff. But I think a soft buff of the Lucy might make them less of a noob trap (noob traps are defined as choices that lose you the game, and thus are only taken by players that haven't learned better), and might give them in a niche where they had some narrow utility where you might consider, "Hey, a Lucy might be useful right now."

[Name Lips]

Honestly, if it didn't do friendly fire damage and could shoot through walls I'd probably build it. I'm not sure why it has those features when no other units do. Why not just make it behave like all the other units?

[Heehee]

Originally posted by Name Lips:

Honestly, if it didn't do friendly fire damage and could shoot through walls I'd probably build it. I'm not sure why it has those features when no other units do. Why not just make it behave like all the other units?

While those changes would certainly make lucifer better, it still won't make it viable. The current meta is stack 4 layers of walls (more if its a small choke point) for the final wave, lucifer isn't going to do jacksquat in that situation. They need to have some sort of special ability or anything that makes it worth it to ditch that strategy for, they might even need to be overpowered to work.

[Tainted Meat]

the fire needs to be an area DOT that spreads if the dead is in masses, just MO

[Morphic]

Originally posted by Celebrim:

Unit composition doesn't work. I can barely think of a RTS that unit composition is actually a thing. In most RTS, you play rock-paper-scissors, and if they spam rock, then you spam paper, and so forth. Only the zombies can't and don't play, so that isn't going to work.

Then you haven't played any quality Competitive RTS game. Yes, the spam "rock paper scissors" is a thing. However if, say, I spam nothing but rock your spammed paper will trump me. Now if I spam rock and some scissors, your spammed paper loses. This forces you to either get good at micro or throw in some rock with your paper to counter my mixed scissors/rock. Hence unit composition does matter.(a great example is Supreme Commander. A couple of Bombers mixed with mass ground vs just mass ground is devastating unless they have some AA.)

Now how that pertains to TAB ... if Lucifers need to get close and, really, the only thing that effectively counters them is Venoms; then throwing in some Snipers to cover the Lucifers should work. Which it does, provided you micro/priority your Snipers. The problem is that Lucifers just plain suck. This is why I feel they don't need a "spitter dmg reduction special" because a few Snipers covering them makes that special pointless since the Venoms will be dead anyway.

Giving them that special only encourages you to spam Lucifers without having support units.(Well if Lucifers were actually good mind. If their only buff was the special then my above point doesn't matter.)

Originally posted by Celebrim:

The thing about unit composition is that if some unit is effective, more of that unit is even more effective. And right now, long ranged units have no counter. They have no weakness. Nothing really messes with them.

That's not a problem with unit composition. That's a problem with the unit vs unit interaction or specialization of the unit. Perfect example is Sniper. 1 by itself is good but easily dead. 5 in a group are pretty good for holding off walkers but still get killed by sprinters. 10+ own everything because of their absurd DPS since Zombies have nothing to counter them except mass Harpies. Which they can't do.

Now on the flipside do the same thing with, say, Soldiers. Suddenly you need significantly more of them but they are hard countered by a couple of Venoms. Throw in a couple of priority Snipers to cover them from Venoms ... look how massive that difference makes.

As you said, Long Range has no direct counter. They have 2 soft counters but, being as we are fighting Zombies, these counters can't be directly used or massed. Which is why things are unbalanced. If we nerf units, they feel like crap and X is better similar to what happened to Titan vs Sniper. If we buff zombies they get to be "OP" and "omg! game too hard!" happens.

TLDR: I'm not trying to argue. What I'm basically saying is that I neither agree nor disagree with your proposed changes. I agree that Lucifers need to be buffed(along with soldier) however I'm unsure how to properly do that. Make them too good and you just create a new spam meta similar to Titan and now Sniper. Make them too situational and they are ignored. Buff Zombies to compensate and suddenly "omg! game too hard!".

Personally I'd give a bunch of Buffs to Lucifer and Soldier while adding in a few new Zombie types designed to counter Ranged units. IMO, literally the only zombies that are "actually dangerous" are Venoms and Chubs. Everything else is just fodder but that's just me.

[vitrescible]

The lucifer isn't very useful. It has some utility when you have about 3 of them to walk up to a wave and cook it when your defensive DPS is thin.

[randomaxeofkindness]

Lucifer firing through walls seem way too overpowered too me. they would be nearly untouchable while completely annihilating zombies that attack the wall, and probs replace any kind of turrets. Only con would be their aggro range.
let him shoot through gates and from towers with the suggested space limitation of 2 or even 1, i could go with that.

i also tried putting them in front of the outer wall with other walls creating a corridor towards them ( also wire fence traps if you got the resources). they were able to hold many at bay (and looked super cool) until the spitters just made quick work of them. also the invested resources could have probably spent more efficiently.
lingering fire seems like a nice buff to me, besides that idk.

[Name Lips]

Originally posted by Sir Kno The Knodel:

Lucifer firing through walls seem way too overpowered too me. they would be nearly untouchable while completely annihilating zombies that attack the wall, and probs replace any kind of turrets.

And thanatos would STILL be better, and lucifers would still not be built.

[vitrescible]

Lucifers shouldn't move so slowly. If they were soldier-fast you could at least consider using them outside of the base.

[Hive tyrant JC]

I actually use lucifers as breach closers or choke point holders. In my most recent game I used 4 lucifers to hold a breach in my walls, ultimately I lost as I didn't have enough snipers to cover them from spitter and harpy attacks, if those hadnt been present those lucifers would have held the position no problem.