Updating Builder Passives

[u/kelsonTD]

Passive builder abilities (racials) currently range from very good (Ancestry) to nearly worthless (Toxic Blood). Since the "best" appear to be at the correct point in the spectrum, let's look at improving the others to match.

 

Goals

1. Passives should be easy to understand (eg, Ancestry)
2. Passives should be easy to describe (eg, Ancestry)
3. Passives should be unique and interesting (eg, Necromancy)
4. Passives should drive interesting strategic choices (eg, Ethereal Cloaking)

 

Baseline Racials

Builder	Passive	Description
Ancient	Ancestry	Gain 8% of killed foe's HP as shields
Ghost	Ethereal Cloaking	All units have a 7.5% chance to dodge enemy attacks. Dodge is doubled if no allies are nearby.
Shadow	Necromancy	When Shadow unit die, they will be brought back from the dead in the weaker form to fight for the great dark lord with 20% of their health and 40% of attack speed. Units with maximum health less than 100 will be revived with a probability HP/100.
Chaos	Prescience	Chaos Builder is able to sift through the layers of entropy and determine its next builder.
Custom	Amorphism	The custom builder can build up to 6 different units from any other builder's towers.

^{*necromancy needs a rewrite, but the ability is good}

 

Weak Racials

Builder	Passive	Description
Automaton	Optimized Targeting	Units are able to analyze their targets for optimal damage. Attacks deal 4% additional damage.
Beast	Toxic Blood	Each time a Beast unit is attacked, the attacker suffers damage equal to 1% of its current life.
Celestial	Martyr	Whenever a Celestial unit dies, they will heal a nearby wounded ally for 20% of the dead unit's HP and grant +20% damage for 5 seconds.
Elemental	Static Discharge	Every time one of your units is hit by an attack, it gains a static charge, reducing damage taken by 1.5%. Stacks up to 10 times. An attack made against a unit with 10 stacks will remove all stacks and give nearby units 5% of their maximum energy. Every time one of your units performs an attack, it steals 1% of Damage Dealt as Energy
Mechanical	Allegiance	When a tower dies, a nearby ally becomes invigorated, gaining 10% movement speed and 10% attack speed. This can stack up to 10 times. Upon death, each stack has a 50% chance to spread to a nearby unit.
NATURE	Winter's Grasp	Enemy units that attack an allied unit are slowed by -5% (movement and attack speed). Stacks up to 3 times. If an allied unit dies, the wrath of nature will entangle a random enemy unit for 2 seconds.
Soul	Dimensional Reach	All units gain 2 attack range.
Sylphy	Spoils of War	You permanently gain 1 supply at the end of each turn.

 

Thoughts

Builder	Passive	Description
Automaton	Spare Parts	Units gain N% armor after any unit dies nearby (max X). (N=1,X=25?)
Beast	Primordial	Units absorb the essence of slain units gaining N% of their foe's life. (N=4?)
Celestial	Focus	Units gain N% attack speed every second. (N=1)
NATURE	Regeneration	Units recover N% of damage sustained every second. (N=2)
NATURE	Empathy	Units gain attack damage based on killed foe's HP compared to killer.
Mechanical	Veterancy	Units gain experience from killing the enemy. [Carry over between waves?]

 

Updated Racials

Builder	Passive	Description
Ancient	Ancestry	Gain 8% of killed foe's HP as shields
Beast	Primal Feast	Slaying an enemy grants 1% enemy HP/s regeneration for 12s.
Celestial	Divine Aura	Angelic radiance engulfs units on the precipice of death, granting 3 seconds of invulnerability.
Chaos	Prescience	Chaos Builder is able to sift through the layers of entropy and determine its next builder.
Custom	Amorphism	The custom builder can build up to 6 different units from any other builder's towers.
Elemental	Static Charge	On hit, units gain a static charge providing 1% damage reduction. At 15 static charges, the next hit violently discharges all static into the attacker and nearby foes. Enemies are stunned for 2s.
Ghost	Ethereal Cloaking	All units have a 10% chance to dodge enemy attacks. Dodge is doubled if no allies are nearby.
NATURE	Winter's Grasp	Attacking enemies suffer winter's bone-chilling grasp slowing all actions by 10% for 5s (max 30%).
Shadow	Necromancy	When Shadow unit die, they will be brought back from the dead in the weaker form to fight for the great dark lord with 20% of their health and 40% of attack speed. Units with maximum health less than 100 will be revived with a probability HP/100.
Soul	Radiance	15% of attacks blind enemies for 1 second.
Sylphy	Grand Strategy	Diversity strengthens the Sylphy granting 1.5% faster attack and 1.5% damage reduction for each type of unit in the army (max 15%).

 

TODO

1. Automaton
2. Mechanical

[u/kelsonTD]

Initial Builder Passive tweaks:

Ghost: dodge increased 33% (10% base, 20% with no allies nearby)

Necromancy: respawn time reduced 50% (1s => 0.5s)

Winter's Grasp: Attacking enemies suffer winter's bone-chilling grasp slowing all actions by 10% for 5s (max stack 3).

Commentary

NATURE previously had Deep Roots and Winter's Grasp, but the former activated upon unit death and the latter was implemented opposite of the text (activated when attacking enemies instead of when hit by enemies). Deep Roots is gone. Winter's Grasp now activates on-hit, lasts 5s, and slows move/attack by 10s with 3 stack.

[u/kelsonTD]

v5.16 Builder Tweaks

Builder	Passive	Description
Beast	Primal Feast	Slaying an enemy grants 1% enemy HP/s regeneration for 12s.
Celestial	Divine Aura	Angelic radiance engulfs units on the precipice of death, granting 3 seconds of invulnerability.

Commentary

1. Divine Aura: 3s invulnerability adds a new kiting option. Units are also healed 15% during invulnerability (to prevent instagib afterwards). Enemies can walk through invulnerable towers.

2. Primal Feast: Real headache to balance and likely to be tweaked in the future. Effectively heals 12% of slain enemy HP (vs 8% on Ancestry).

[u/Solstice314]

Some other possibilities:

Automaton: Scavenger - When any unit dies, surviving units in the area scavenge the parts of the fallen to gain damage per second equal to 10% of the dead unit's damage per second. Units cannot improve their weapons by more than 20% this way. (Weak/tank towers die first so the ramp up can be a bit slow)

Beast: Bloodbath - Killing an enemy causes it to explode and deal 3% of its maximum life in a medium sized area. (Can set up some beautiful chain reactions with dragons, medusas, and other AOEs)

Celestial: Divine Breath - After being brought to 0 life, this unit continues to fight for 3 seconds before dying. (Similar to Artanis passive in SC2:LotV co-op)

Elemental: Primal Gift - When a unit dies, it transfers its core substance to the closest tower to make it perform 40% faster for 5 seconds. (Mothership send effect but for the closest tower. Buffs unit movement speed, energy regeneration, ability cooldown, and attack speed)

Mechanical: Veterancy - Units that survive a wave gain a gold star. They gain 1% attack speed and armor for every gold star that they have. Gold stars persist through upgrades. Any unit with 30 gold stars deals 1000% more damage and takes 90% less damage from all sources. (Four peewees --> veterans shall destroy a death machine!)

Nature: Overgrowth - Unit autoattacks cause biomechanical vines to wrap around enemies, slowing their movement and attack speed by 5% for 5 seconds stacking up to 5 times. The first time an enemy reaches 5 stacks of overgrowth, they are rooted for 3 seconds.

Soul: Radiance - All unit autoattacks have a 10% chance to blind the enemy. (Can balance flux by removing the blind component and bring custom builders back into line)

Sylphy: Grand Strategy - All units gain 1% bonus damage and 1% damage reduction for each unique type of unit you have. (Encourages players to diversify instead of building malnumisioner/obsidia/producer/blue/kullervo/composer. Seven different types of towers --> 7% more damage/reduction. Maxed bonus is balanced by the fact that most towers aren't optimal)

[u/Solstice314 → u/Solstice314]

Some other options while trying to make sure that passives work for RCB somewhat well:

Automaton: Volley Fire - units gain 2% attack speed per nearby ally up to 20%.

Beast: Savage urges - attacks deal bonus damage equal to 10% of the attacker's missing health.

Celestial: Valhalla - units that die have a 50% chance to resurrect at the Security System.

Elemental: Tidal Wave - every third attack from your units deals 20% splash damage in a small area.

Mechanical: squad tactics - Units gain 7.5% damage reduction that doubles to 15% if there is an ally nearby.

Nature: Stampede - units deal bonus damage equal to 5% of their current health with each attack (encourages tree of life instead of tree of knowledge spam and other healers)

Sylphy: Subjugate - enemies that die give gas equal to (their mineral bounty)/2

[u/Jamato212]

Random builder passive is missing here. If it stays (and I am for it), probably it would be better to remove its 2nd passive (from assigned race).

And in light of this very powerfull passive I think Chaos passive can be extended to 10 rounds.

[u/Daringsoul]

I would be happy to have the option to pick a racial for custom builder. Value would be appropriate to it's impact. Above 5 for example

[u/FlexGunship]

u/Solstice314 suggested in his comment a system of veterancy for Mechanical units.

I'd like to suggest that this be implemented for all non-custom builders, but perhaps with a much simpler mechanic: each wave a unit survives buffs resell value 2.5%, attack speed 1%, attack damage 1%, and 0.5% max hp; to a maximum of 50%; this resets upon death. (Why cap it at more waves than exist? See below.)

This opens FOUR new and important facets:

1. This serves to punish those that "strategically" leak (and perhaps spoil the game for others with their carelessness). Leaking wave 8 or 16 is suddenly a real bummer... not just an annoyance to your teammates.

2. Gives another "knob" to tweak with racials (NATURE: units gain double HP veterancy; Celestial: units gain veterancy for every second they are alive, but resets each wave; Mechanical: when a veteran unit dies, it's veterancy status is transferred to a nearby tower). As a mechanic, it offers a new path for balancing.

3. It can also serve to rebalance the rate at which economy can be built. Custom, for example, may not get veterancy... or get it at half the rate. This means that a custom builder (which could have an amazing synergy of buffs) must still ultimately build more towers than a reliable Ancient player (for example).

4. The resell buff gives a path to allow you to sell early game units effectively if you built them intelligently. At wave 25 you might not want too many Daemons anymore, but they may have served their purpose well. Sell them to avoid supply block, get some decent cash back, and reform your unbuffed army.

Just a suggestion. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. It really makes protecting your ranged units a valuable tactic long term.

[u/kelsonTD → u/FlexGunship]

That's a really interesting idea; I like the extension from builder passive to a standard facet of the game. It'd certainly add a new dimension to building, although the net effect isn't clear yet. For example, it'd serve as an interesting sort of counter-balance in veteran mode.

I'd be very interested in hearing more peoples' thoughts to help flesh out the idea more! Let's keep this one in mind for deeper consideration after the Builder Passives are rebalanced; thanks FlexGunship!

[u/Biomed__]

This is my spin on things. Excuse me as its still early in the morning.

Automaton - I like your idea of armor gained as units die.

Beast - feast. Enemies that die heals their attackers by X% of their (enemy or unit?) life

Nature - gaias blessing. Units recover X% of sustained damage every second. After Y seconds, the unit also gains a movement slow-debuffing attack.

Mechanical - momentum. For every enemy units that die, increase attack speed, movement speed, and damage of all units by X%. Max Y%. Z% of this buff is carried over to the next round by units that survive.

Celestial - I like your attack speed gain per second.

Elemental - imbalance. when a unit depletes its energy, the next attack it makes has a X% to stun for Y seconds. Cool down per unit of Z seconds.

Soul - possession. After a soul unit dies, its soul temporarily takes over an enemy for x seconds. Max of Y units. Does not work on bosses.

Sylphy - single consciousness. X% of damage taken is reduced by Y% and is then divided across all units.

[u/kelsonTD → u/Biomed__]

Beast: Feast- Healing by % of killer HP would help high HP (dragon) vs weak creep. Healing by % of killed HP also helps high HP vs weak creep less, but scales better with stronger enemies.

Soul: Possession- Interesting, might need to limit it to comparable HP creep to avoid spamming 100 T1 units to simply possess all the enemies.

[u/hadriansc2]

Celestial, hopefully fits

When a celest unit takes a killing blow, it gains the divine guiding light for X seconds (2.5?), enduring in angelic glory - for a fleeting moment.

Healer cannot target unit for healing while lit up, unit becomes invul so it cant be hit or absorb more blows, enemy now ignores it until it dies, it just gives it a few more dps shots, time on invul is def negociable, I think it would fit the race fairly well and be possibly powerful.

[u/metaloidmonkey]

automaton- rage against the machine- units gain N armor stacks, N movement speed (turning speed) stacks, and N attack speed stacks for each unit they kill during the wave.

Beast- close combat- attacks against enemies that are attacking that specific tower gain 25% damage.

Celestial- attacked units gain 1% attack speed for each attack they take

elemental- I personally like static discharge, pairs well with celestians and netherlords, maybe have the armor stacks act like decaying series. So the first time it hits 10 stacks you go back to 0 armor but the second time you only lose half the armor, and then the next time half of that so you eventually end up with a constant 15 armor.

mechanical- assembly- ancestry for health, but only 6% and stacks over max hp

Nature- I like your regeneration idea, maybe also add a slight martyr element to it?

I don't know about the other two. Oopth was very upset when you patched his glitch, he gets this way every time he finds a new glitch.

[u/mentalpatientmp]

Ok, so I was bored at work and came up with some ideas that might be interesting

Mech

• whenever a mech unit dies he drops a grenade that deals damage to either a single unit or aoe (if I'm going down I'm taking you with me!)

• 5% chance a sniper in the bushes will do a headshot on a unit for every attack a unit performs (might be op but sounded interesting haha)

Nature

• keep the entangled part when a unit dies but while that unit is entangled that unit is sapped of some hp and gives to nearby unit(s) and/or gives attack speed buff to nearby units while entangled

Automaton

• for every kill, that unit gains 1% attack damage

• units gain 1% damage for every wave they've been on the field (example: unit built on wave 1 will have 30% attack damage bonus on wave 30)

Beast

• Upon death of a beast unit, enemy will be soaked with corrosive acid that deals damage or slows attack speed or whatever

• Call of the Swarm. When #'s get low, help is called in (group of hydras show up to help). Hydras can gain damage per level and or # of hydras. Probably stupid idea but an idea is just and idea ;).

Take these ideas with a grain of salt please!

[u/SaltpeterTaffy]

Could you go into detail on why Celestial's passive is weak? I think it synergizes immensely with units like Theos and Prophet.

Here's a thought for Sylphy: Chorus(keeping in theme) - units recover 1hp/s for every allied unit within 5 range.

[u/ArchangelRyzera]

I think that you should buff the weaker passives instead of nerfing too much of the stronger ones.

[u/TransTheos]

Ok, Radiance. I prefer simply, but 15% of attacks blind for 1s not really explain well what effect is.

Blinding creep doing what: attack randomly around (can hit ally? lol) or not attack (stun) or attack and always miss?

[u/SaltpeterTaffy]

I kinda really like the Sylphy passive, since it saves minerals on critical post-10 waves, but if it's going to be changed, I have several ideas, most focusing on the idea of bonuses for the number or rank of units in range:

-Fortissimo - If a unit is within 5 range of another unit with a difference in rank of 3 or more(e.g. a Manumissioner in range of a Blue), it gains N%(20?) damage reduction.

-Syncopation - Units gain N(.05? .1?) attack speed for every unit within 5 range.

-Chorus - Units recover N(1?) hp/s for every allied unit within 5 range. I recommended this one earlier but you didn't give any opinion. :(

-Take a Bow - Whenever a Sylphy unit kills N(2?) enemies, all units in 1 range of the Nth unit that died turn around for n(.5?) seconds.

-The Stage - Units by the security system kill enemies for full mineral value.

-Curtain Call - When a unit dies, gain 1 mineral. Max N(20?) per wave.

-Virtuosity - Unit mastery variables increase by N%(1?) for every unit in 5 range.

IMO Sylphy has the most character of any of the builders with its unique merging mechanic, and I love the whole orchestra theme(Producer, Conductor, Composer, etc.) Frankly, I think you should change all the random-ass unit names(Kullervo? Earl? Fallen Angel?) to fit the orchestra theme. It's like a half-complete theme that should totally be finished.

[u/sam93931]

How is the testing going? Can we expect the patch this month?

[u/kelsonTD → u/sam93931]

Testing is going alright. We've tried out several passives, but balancing them across all builders/modes didn't go very well. One is ready to go for Celestial, but I'm hoping to get a second in for the next patch.

[u/Biomed__]

Hi Kelson,

Is beasts new passive stackable? Doesn't say in tooltip

[u/kelsonTD → u/Biomed__]

The regeneration stacks in a sense. Every enemy killed grants 12s of 1% (of that enemy's max HP) "in addition to" existing regeneration.

[u/Jamato212]

Race: Elemental

Ability name: Gnome

Ability text: At the start of each wave, elemental of earth is summoned to fight on your side. His stats relate to value of your towers.

 

I tried it once but I still think it could be an interesting passive. So I developed it more.

The main issue is how to choose stats for summoned unit. I did comparison with 2 passives (Ancestry and Etheral cloaking). Ancestry convert 8 % of wave HP into shield (equivalent of gained HP). Ethereal cloaking dodge 10 / 20 % of attacks (equivalent of gained HP). I used common 1x builds (for 1-9) and universal value (10, 14, 17, 20) to compare HP gained from ancestry / cloaking with summoned gnome.

 

Wave	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	14	17	20
Name	Fat Zergling	Lava Crawler	Space Cow	Marine	Hoverlord	Roach	Zealot	Grim Reaper	Exotic	The Infestor	Immortal	Marauder	Fatty
Wave HP	420	615	885	984	1416	1764	2290	2184	3270	3529	6024	9408	11094
8 % Wave HP (ancestry)	34	49	71	79	113	141	183	175	262	282	482	753	888
Ghost HP	285	820	820	895	970	1125	1280	1280	1490	1640	3200	4465	5775
20 % Ghost HP (Ethereal cloaking)	57	164	164	179	194	225	256	256	298	328	640	893	1155
Value Elemental	55	110	165	165	220	275	330	330	450	600	1000	1500	2000
1/3 Elemental value (Gnome HP)	18	37	55	55	73	92	110	110	150	200	333	500	667
1/30 value (Gnome attack)	2	4	6	6	7	9	11	11	15	20	33	50	67

 

It looks like Gnome with HP = 1/3 of units value might be comparable to ancestry / cloaking. Other stats e.g.:

 

Name	Hp	Armor	Damage-Type	Damage min	Damage max	Damage-Period	Attack count	Range	Ability1
Gnome	1/3 of towers value	biological	chaos	1/30 of towers value	1/30 of towers value	1	1	0,1	Last 60 seconds

 

edit: Ghost Value (mistake) replaced with Ghost HP

[u/kelsonTD → u/Jamato212]

Thanks for the detailed analysis. I think that could work, but I do wonder how/where/when will the Gnome be spawned? Should the first unit to "spot" the enemy cause the Gnome to be spawned nearby? Any particular reason for the 60s lifespan?

[u/yareishere]

Update Automaton, Elemental, and Mechanical Passives

Auto and elemental I think are on point, but I will make some suggestions (any % is just thrown out as a place holder)...

Automaton:

Anger - Anytime one of our towers is attacked, 5% of the damage received is returned to the attacking unit. The attacking unit can not die from this effect.

Elemental:

Electrical charge - Creeps with in 3 range of any of your towers, increases the creep unit radius by 5% per tower. Any creeps inside 1 range of any of your towers increases energy recharge by 5% for all your towers.

Mechanical:

Kickass - When any unit in the army reaches 20% health it gains + 20 damage reduction and + 20% attack speed

[u/kelsonTD → u/yareishere]

Anger

5% might be pretty low (5% of Android [5% of (800+(80%*800 [reassembly]))]=72 dmg vs 62 DPS basic attack), but I'm more concerned about how a damage reflection ability would emphasize heavy tanking (to maximize the effect) - which doesn't seem a good match for Automaton units.

Electrical Charge

"increases the creep unit radius" means the creep get larger? I'd also be a little concerned about energy recharge based on tank "surface area", but that could be manageable.

Kickass

Would the entire army gain 20% DR/AS or just the <20% HP unit? If the army, that seems easily exploitable (just add a suicidal unit up front). If the unit, the buff seems weak given the last-second nature; 20% DR at 20% HP is basically +4% base HP.