So, if LB's are worthless...

See thread for discussion on worthlessness of LB's: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=7888

...can we expect a patch to change/replace/remove them? I'd love to hear from the devs on this, and community members to see what they think a solution would be to the free juice dispensers, AKA low level LB's. And by low level, I mean anything not 3.3, and even that isn't good for the investment of money and time you have to put into it compared to what you could get out of a 1.3 RockIt turret (and mind you you'd have $25 leftover if you went the RockIt route compared to the Level 3 LB...not much but it's something).

I could see a few solutions, depending on the time Uber would like to invest in this problem (if any at all).

1.) Make LB's not give juice when damaging opponents.

2.) Redesign the LB to function differently...this is just a random idea, but for example: Have it deal increasing damage over time with the lower damage levels (where one has been exposed to it for a very short amount of time) give much much less juice. If you did this, you'd probably have to also increase their survivability so that someone couldn't LOS kill them or just rush them and kill them before they got to serious damage levels.

3.) Remove the damned thing. Right now the community that understands game mechanics calls them worthless, and when a new teammate builds them then the lecture begins: Don't build them, they're bad, they give free juice to tanky classes, etc. Repeating that on a daily basis gets old.


Thoughts, suggestions, comments, questions, etc.?

I say just increase the rate of fire significantly, and slightly reduce the juice generation, so that it's a very skilled thing to get juice off the lazer blazer due to timing, and so it actually does decent damage in a pinch. I think them being glass cannons was intended, though, so I don't like the idea of giving them more health.

What do I know, though. I haven't been playing as much as I should.

I think they should have more range, to at least give them some purpose. Removing the juice bonus would be nice.

I think it's fine to have a cheap turret that acts as a throwaway panicdefense. However, LBs simply don't fill that role because even a lvl 1 rockit is just way better than investing in a lvl 3 LB. I think the LB should be made a bit more expensive (50, 100, 200 respectively) and just be be made stronger all around. More health, more firepower, more range maybe. A nifty burn effect on pros would be nice to prevent quick regeneration and to light up assassins. A lvl 2 LB should outperform a lvl 1 rockit because they'd cost the same, but rockits can be upgraded further.

Also, I think they should give less money to the enemy when destroyed.

1) add small burning effect (to make assasssins visible, not a lot of dmg)

2) if a target is inside a shaved ice within your base, a laser blaser gets double range bonus at lvl 2, to targets inside shaved ice, and tripple ranged bonus at lvl 3. Hacking will increase the base range as well as the bonus range when units are effected by shaved ice.


this way turrets are a stand alone weapon, and lazer blazers work in conjunction with shaved ice..

They should have a further range than a LVL2 Rock-It, and not give Juice like it's going out of fashion. That way, the good old days of killing Assassins halfway across Ammo Mule with a 3.3 Lazer is still viable/hilarious.

I approve of that guys idea^

Lazer Blazers have a problem with worth/effectiveness.
For $25 less, you can buy a level 1 Rockit which deals more damage then a lvl3 LB.
Not to mention it gives juice to tanks.
So there isn't much justification for them.

LB's should:

Light people on fire
or
lvl3 LB should deal more damage then a lvl1 Rockit, without being hacked.
or
Have the longest range of all the turrets

Or some combination of the 3.

As it is, build a Rockit, or don't build anything at all. Or maybe a shave ice.
Long shots/LB are fairly useless.

Long Shots are good for controlling enemy droids. I always make sure that there is at least (or at most) one level 2 longshot or higher.

I propose a different idea entirely that requires neither redesign nor re-purpose, but a mere adjustment of values.

First, what are they supposed to be?

As confirmed by Scathis, LBs are supposed to be "cheapo" turrets. The economic option. You build them because they're cheap and expendable.

The problem?

They're just plain bad. A lvl 3 can hold some bots at bay, but even then if unattended it'll go down rather stupid fast. The only turret that's more fragile is the longshot and that one serves an offensive purpose. Hell, it can even be suicidal if there's a good tank on the enemy team as they'll just use it as a free juice dispenser...

My suggestions is to spike up their damage, even higher than Rockit's, but lower their health, even more so than they have now. That way they retain their identity as "cheapo" turrets, but enhance their performance and turn them into actual "cheap expendable turrets" which would serve their purpose. Make them actually pretty powerful to single targets, but very easy to take down, even by a lone individual and even when being hacked and nursed by a support.

As for more concrete stats, it's hard to say. I'd have to play around with it. I'd say spike it up to around 250/300 dps at lvl 3 (crazy, I know), so it really does shred through an unaware enemy that just walks into it. But conversely lower the health to around 750/1500/3000 for corresponding levels (currently it's 1500/3000/4500), so any class could take it out even if being helped by a support. Just eyeballing the values off course, this would need proper testing.

Rockits would still be the best and more expensive option since they're tanks, still do huge DPS, and the explosive radius from the rockets is a menace to crowds. Shaveices and Longshots wouldn't be affected. Laser Blazers would simply become the a cheap glass cannons. It would deliver some wicked damage, but so much as breath on it's general direction and down it goes.

It would create an actual tactical decision of "should I spring for the more reliable and better performing, but more expensive, Rockit, or should I just build a temporary cheapo glass cannon at the risk that a proper offense will knock it down and leave me with an unusable stub pretty sharpish? Do I invest in a more expensive long term option or a cheaper short term alternative?". It would also stop tanks getting free juice out of it as it would force them to either kill it or die from it.

As it is currently it's not really an option 99% of the time. Just don't build laser blazers. Kill a bot wave or three. Get a lvl 1 Rockit and be better off for it.

faster rebuilding nubs? maybe some extra damage too atleast at lv3

I like that idea of exemplary glass cannon-ness.
I would use one or two in a pinch or at the start if they were in non-spammable locations, just to reduce the chance of assassins raping the more toughened turrets. It would provide you with a tactical choice as to which turrets you need to take out first. Them being economical only increases this, as if the good turrets survive(as they will if someone is attempting to kill them at close range with a blazer covering them), heal them back to max. If they kill the lazer blazer, they then have to contend with the good turrets, which have already targeted them. They die, rebuild lazer blazer.

IMO just revert it back to how they were originally.

LBs, especially at 3.3, did some pretty good damage. Rockits were more expensive than they are now, so people couldn't just throw Lv3s up all over the place.

Allow them to "see" assassins?

I vote for setting the enemy on fire, slightly more damage, and slightly less health.

I think the concept of the Lazer Blazers is inherently flawed because they are not truly expendable. The cost of a turret is not the biggest consequence as is losing the turret itself and being unable to build another until the turret nub regenerates.

I suggest that LB's should not destroy their turret nubs when they are destroyed. They're so incredibly easy to kill that it is inevitable that it will eventually die, and the wasted nub is the real price to pay when the turret can't hold it's own against even a one man push long enough for assistance to arrive.

I like the concept of being a cheaper turret, but they're a little too cheap and not expendable enough. They should be 50, 100, 150 at levels 1, 2, and 3 respectively, have some more health, do some more damage, and leave turret nubs undestroyed so that more turrets can be quickly re-erected (to be thrown away again, you know, as expendable turrets).

The real challenge is finding a balance between levels 1 and 3 so that they are still expendable (level 1) while not being utterly worthless in Overtime or big Moneyball push efforts (level 3).

WHY HAS NO-ONE EVER THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE

Sir, you are a genius.

Because then you'd have nearly unkillable sentries. At 175 damage a pop, they're kinda crap, and they go down easy, but they'd go up just as fast. Not to mention there would be no real punishment for building them as opposed to any other option.

Yeah I've been brainstorming about additional effects that could be added to them.

I like the idea of a short-duration burn. Other ideas would be a slight vision distortion (think a much less effective product grenade, just something to slightly mess up aim), a rate of fire / reload slowdown (the lasers overheat weapons), or maybe they slightly drain a pro's juice.

Obviously they would have to be balanced, I was just thinking of something different than just more damage/health. I also like the idea of them somehow working with Shaveice or other turrets, maybe they put a very short-term debuff on pro that makes RockIts do more damage.

Though I also really like the idea of them not leaving a destroyed nub. That would make them serve the purpose of a cheap/clutch option a lot better, because currently the opportunity cost of a destroyed nub makes them more of a long-term investment in terrible.

If you're going to build a lvl3 lazer blazer back to back, you might as well build a useful Rockit turret. More health/more firepower with a Rockit.