What's this? A new update for Element TD 2? That's right, we're back with some significant changes! We've got performance improvements, quality of life, a bunch of balance updates, and a new difficulty to test your skills against. Read on for the full notes!
Improvements
General
- Spatial Hash applied. In short, this results in major performance improvements, especially on the CPU end.
- Singleplayer games no longer need to connect online to submit to leaderboard. As a result, we've removed the "online" checkbox in singleplayer entirely, because it's no longer necessary.
- Legendary difficulty added (250% HP, 15x Score)
- Czech and Italian localization updated
- When a player leaves in co-op, their towers are no longer sold and instead ownership is transferred
- There is now a ready button before first wave start in all modes except Ranked
- Ranked match desync detector relaxed a bit
- Ranked has been adjusted from Very Hard to Insane Difficulty
Bug Fixes
- Disconnected from Steam message no longer blocks the game by spamming
- Fixed Tesla Tree connections broken on load checkpoint
- Fixed bug with achievements for mission 7 and 9 in campaign
- Fixed Corrosion and Incantation not being impacted by Diminishing Returns
- Fixed a bug with Nuclear tower where % of HP damage was calculated based on each creep itself not the target creep
Balance Changes
Global
Most towers are receiving range buffs across the board, increasing their overall usability. Essence picks are indirectly buffed from Level 4 Singles being cheaper and (mostly) more powerful. You have more starting gold, and Level 3 Elementals are a little easier to kill.
On the nerf side of things, 6 Element has remained a dominant build due to the potency of stacking all their support towers (Triples & Quads), as well as Periodic being exceedingly powerful. We've made some adjustments there.
- Interest rate pick bonus reduced from 0.65% to 0.6%
- Diminishing Returns increased from 12% to 13%
- Diminishing Returns stack cap increased from 6 to 7
- The following Quads now contribute to Diminishing Returns: Phantom Zone, Rage, Nuclear, Shredder, Gravity Cannon, Singularity
- Periodic and Level 4 Single Element total cost reduced from 16000 to 13750
- 750 range towers increased to 850 range
- 900 range towers increased to 1000 range
- 1150 range towers remain the same
- 1500 range towers reduced to 1450 range
- Some towers that were previously 1500 range are now 1750 range. These are listed in tower notes below.
- Starting gold increased from 250 to 300
- Mazing bonus starting gold increased from 350 to 375
- Ranked starting gold increased from 1300 to 1500
- Extra Short starting gold increased from 7000 to 7500
- Boss Hunt starting gold increased from 120000 to 130000
- Elemental Level 3 Base HP reduced from 22500 to 20000
- Elemental HP wave multiplier increased from x1.5 to x1.515
- Healing creep heal rate reduced from 30% to 25%
Base Towers
- Arrow tower range increased from 900 to 1150
- Arrow tower damage increased from 60 to 62
- Periodic tower damage reduced from 52000 to 39000
Single Element Towers
- Light increased from 1500 to 1750 range
- Darkness increased from 1150 to 1450 range
- Level 4 Water tower damage increased from 35640 to 38880
- Level 4 Fire tower damage increased from 14040 to 17280
- Level 4 Fire tower bonus damage increased from 468 to 576
- Level 4 Nature tower damage increased from 37620 to 47880
- Level 4 Earth tower shockwave damage reduced from 17640 to 15120
- Level 4 Light tower damage increased from 56160 to 70200
- Level 4 Light tower consecutive bonus damage increased from 1404 to 1620
- Level 4 Darkness tower damage increased from 129600 to 151200
Dual Element Towers
- Geyser tower ability AoE increased from 300 to 300 / 350 / 400
- Lightning tower bounce damage retained increased from 85% / 88% / 91% to 85% / 90% / 95%
- Infernal tower given 75 AoE
- Ice tower damage reduced from 850 / 3400 / 13600 to 700 / 2800 / 11200
- Howitzer tower range increased from 1500 to 1750
- Howitzer tower damage reduced from 190 / 760 / 3080 to 175 / 700 / 2800
- Well, Blacksmith, and Trickery range increased from 900 to 1150
Triple Element Towers
Mostly buffs here. Except Money Tower. It no longer grants additional gold over time.
- Ethereal tower damage increased from 900 / 3600 to 950 / 3800
- Ethereal tower bonus damage increased from 75 / 300 to 95 / 380
- Wisp tower damage increased from 750 / 3000 to 850 / 3400
- Haste tower max speed increased from 5.5 / 6.5 to 6 / 7
- Golem tower attack downtime reduced from 4 to 3.5 seconds
- Money tower passive gold generation removed
- Money tower damage multiplier increased from 20% / 40% to 25% / 50%
- Runic tower damage reduced from 1125 / 4500 to 925 / 3700
- Flamethrower tower Napalm damage increased from 210 / 840 to 230 / 920
Triple Element Support Towers
Many of these towers were close if not matching effectiveness in damage to the Triple Element Damage Towers. This contributed heavily to 6 Element dominance. As a result, we've severely reduced their damage.
- Corrosion tower damage reduced from 140 / 560 to 90 / 360
- Incantation tower damage reduced from 475 / 1900 to 375 / 1500
- Jinx tower damage reduced from 1100 / 4400 to 750 / 3000
- Muck tower damage reduced from 900 / 3600 to 600 / 2400
- Nova tower damage reduced from 500 / 2000 to 350 / 1400
- Nova tower slow duration increased from 3 to 5 seconds
- Polar tower damage reduced from 1000 / 4000 to 700 / 2800
- Root tower damage reduced from 90 / 360 to 50 / 200
- Root tower AoE increased from 200 to 300
- Windstorm tower damage reduced from 725 / 2900 to 400 / 1600
- Windstorm tower slow duration increased from 3 to 5 seconds
Quad Element Towers
As mentioned earlier, numerous Support Quads now contribute to Diminishing Returns. Some have received buffs; others nerfs. On the whole, Damage Quads are buffed. This should result in 6 Element no longer being overwhelmingly powerful while retaining their usability in 4 Element and 5 Element builds.
- Archdruid tower AoE increased from 300 to 400
- Archdruid damage multiplier increased from 5% to 7%
- Crystal Spire spirit range increased from 600 to 650
- Crystal Spire spirit count increased from 9 to 10
- Doom max damage increased from 25200 to 27000 damage
- Gravity Cannon slow down duration increased from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds
- Gravity Cannon damage reduced from 12400 to 9000
- Life Altar damage reduced from 8500 to 8000
- Life Altar duration reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds
- Life altar no longer affects illusions
- Nuclear tower damage reduced from 10000 to 8000
- Nuclear tower % of HP damage increased from 0.25% to 0.3% per second
- Nuclear tower base damage per second reduced from 6000 to 3000
- Obelisk base explosion damage fixed (was incorrectly set to 0 but should be 4000)
- Obelisk tower damage reduced from 4500 to 4000
- Phantom Zone damage reduced from 16000 to 14000
- Plague tower stack damage increased from 675 to 700
- Rage damage multiplier increased from 20% to 25%
- Railgun ability damage increased from 62500 to 70000
- Railgun passive charge increased from 25 to 40
- Tesla now receives an additional 1000 damage per tower in the chain
- Nuclear tower slow increased from 30% to 35%
- Shredder damage reduced from 13000 to 10000
- Shredder tower creep HP after split reduced from 60% to 55%
- Singularity damage increased from 13000 to 13200
- Tsunami tower ability damage reduced from 23000 / 55000 / 95000 / 145000 to 22000 / 52000 / 90000 / 135000
As per usual, with a balance update, Leaderboards have been reset. Additionally, Ranked Season 7 has begun!
We hope you enjoy this latest update to the game. Try out all kinds of new strategies, and see how much better the game performs (especially in Co-op). Let us know what you think of the update on our Discord!
After this update, we have one more major update planned, which will cover long-term server support. You can read about those details here.
Lastly, Element TD 2 is on sale for the Steam Summer Sale 2024! Let your friends (and enemies) know they can pick up both the base game and the Mazing DLC for 50%!
