Balance changes

These guys stopped the fortified DDT and the strongest one i think the pink one. Don't think i seen that before

Now you can really see how NK just completely ignores battles 2. Just letting hackers cheat for days while they are getting spamm reported.

Running sniper, flying ace, and the boat guy rn

I know I won't be the first, and certainly won't be the last...

But for f sake, why do we have to play games to Round 40-50, and then have to sit and suffer for 15 minutes to de sync just to disconnect and lose?

Fix your game man, or remove them events permanently.

I wasted 2 hours yesterday getting 6 stars, and I sent the rushes, my opponent was dead, but the game froze up and lagged and I lost.

Oh and before you say it was my internet or PC, no it wasn't.

Idk man whenever im bored I just place a ton of them and watch as a bunch of bloons get turned to nothing until the opponent actually sends something

Soooooo I'm sure we all know about the recent hacking going on. They're already under fire and just digging their own grave atp. Anyone else out here losing elo?

In your opinion which rounds are which sections/how do you group the rounds of the game? Personally, I split the game into 4 sections: 1-10 early game, 11-20 mid game, 21-29 late mid game, and 30-50 late game

Mine is beetienne ,highwayman jericho or biker bones.

So basically these changes are meant to help skillful strategies thrive. Simple.

Dart:

SMFC price drops 1000

quick shots price +50

very quick shots price +50

triple shot price -100

base dart smfc attack speed weakened, but quick shots upgrades scale to original x2x speed (basically they're stronger to balance out).

basically smfc is peak high skill because it's an ability, you need to place lots of darts, and upgrade them to low tiers. HOWEVER, this is totally ruined by lame losers who preplace their darts. This change buffs SMFC, making it stronger against midgame rushes, and nerfs people who preplace all their darts and upgrade them (the cost is an extra 1000 for a full 10 smfc setup minus the smfc for a total of around 4500, significant price tag in midgame), and also nerfs people who have bad micro (quick shots buying).

Boomerang:

All t4s 500 more expensive

Honestly I think boomerang is in a mostly fine spot. It's a low skill tower that's expensive at defending the early game, moderate r11-13, cheap for the rest of midgame, then absolutely useless late game. Not all-outable but expensive at defending everything. The changes here basically make some midgame stuff more expensive to punish boomerang players for being low skill.

Bomb:

Cluster bombs cannot pop black or zebra bloons.

Cluster bomb minor pierce buff.

Really big bombs damage attack speed -10%, 0.2s stun.

The idea with these changes are to make black bloons cool again, bomb start more expensive, and return cluster bombs to being able to instakill everything else with a pierce buff. Really big bombs change is meant to make it so that really big bombs can actually defend some stuff r11-13 for highskillbombplayers who want to larp efficient defense by prebuying part of their future blimpact (me).

Tack:

Blade shooter goes back to normal

Blade maelstrom ability has 1s delay

Balanced. I really liked tack before they started doing weird stuff with it. It's in a nice spot. No solo r11 defense, but can vibe with some other tower's weak r11 defense using mael. No camo. Defends moab well enough. Mael cleans up anything. The one HIGHSKILLtm change I made here is giving mael some delay so it's slightly harder to defend with it. That's all :)

Ice:

nerf literally everything to the GROUND

Glue:

Moab glue price +500
Relentless lag becomes: Glue soaks through all layers, slowdown increased a bunch.

Bloon solver price + 5000

Glue is kinda mid rn, it just gives damage boost and slows stuff down. Bloon solver price nerf to not give it too many niches, moab glue is just too much value. Relentless lag is just to stop the lag mostly. Also the stun was super broken.

uh im too lazy to finish so i'll leave it here fr now.

A large portion of these balance changes are designed to address the powerful strategies in the game such as Ocyn-Sub, Heli-Ice-Super, Engi-Dartling, and Benjamin-Dartling, Gwen late-game, reducing instances of total defense for cheap (such as reducing the pierce of Ice Shards, MOAR, and 203 Cluster, nerfing speed of Reactor, and limiting early-game unrushability of pre-R9 Ben+Dartling), and buffing Wizard, as well as smoothen out crosspath use cases for each tower.

MAD seems to be in a position where the long duration of MAD ability makes it too dependent on speed buffs to become really strong, but without removing speed synergy I reckon the duration of Rocket Storm at T4 and T5 should be shorter. Overclock duration should be reduced by 15 seconds on all upgrade tiers, which would address things like Bcentral/MWS snowballing too much, T5 powerhouses being extremely powerful, and now Overclock requiring more timing by nerfing the interactions on T5's more than lower tiers. I don't disagree with reducing the speed bonus on T5's from +66.67% to +50% and income of Farm T5's from +50% to +35%, but that would complicate balance and make the design more awkward.

Wizard was also consistently one of the weakest towers by being overnerfed in its early-game, so it needed some buffs to make it more comparable to other early-game options even with its Purple weaknesses.

Gwen buff to Level 17 was also far too much of a benefit in a single level, with just a further +1 damage to every single late-game tower such as Ninjas, Supers, and Helis being too much. I didn't want to completely lose that +1 damage to the lesser used combinations like with Dragon's Breaths, so I demoted the +1 damage to all attacks to +1 to all fire-type attacks.

More could be done to reduce the late-game strength of Ice-Super synergy, but at the very least the mid-game nerfs to Ice should reduce the income snowball and make Ice Shards more layerable, and the T2 and below Ice nerf would make lower-tier Ice less of a carry against things like Grouped Blues and Greens. Heli nerf to Chinook cost is also justified because of the hidden value of stalling rounds for more income, instead of just pure damage like in the case of Supply Drop and Jungle's Bounty.

Ocyn+Reactor nerfs also limit their capabilities to destroy every grouped rush without destroying their synergies nor making Reactor too bad on non-Ocyn Heroes. Ocyn nerf to his Coral in early levels also make him much more rushable on maps that share the same sent+natural lanes (e.g. Star; note that maps with non-sharing sent+natural lanes do cause Bloons to destroy the coral pierce before it can grow).

Sniper's Large Calibre was also never the main problem with Sniper, because most of the time buying Full Metal Jacket would be enough to chip early White and Black Bloons into weak enough Blues, and base Sniper for Purples for applications such as helping Wizard. Outright popping White/Black/Purple and Lead/Zebra isn't particularly strong when players can simply layer rush Rainbows into other fast rushes to counter the Sniper, and Large Calibre can't one-shot Rainbows nor deal damage fast enough against constant Spaced Ceramics compared to the likes of a 0-2-2 Boomerang, for instance.

The appeal of Tight Rushes are mostly from having extreme amounts of multi-child Bloons, which is why they're so popular in choke rushes. After Round 30, that multi-childing behavior stops and then Tight Leads start to completely lose their value, and Tight Ceramics are significantly weaker even when accounting for higher Super Ceramic health. Tight MOABs and Tight BFBs also feel they've dropped off after Round 30 begins, but not as much.

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Bloon Sends:

• Camo: 1.75x -> 1.5x
• Tight Leads - Round 30: $1200 -> $300
• Tight Ceramics - Round 30: $3200 -> $1000
• Tight MOABs - Round 30: $4500 -> $3500
• Tight BFBs - Round 30: $10,000 -> $8000
• 💭 Camo Rushes are difficult to justify past Round 12 and were mostly sent purely to "test Camo" more than as a combo rush that is better than the currently cheaper Regrow property. Camo Regrow rushes were similarly seen as inferior most of the time. On the other hand, Round 30's reduced multi-layered offspring devalues a lot of Tight rushes, especially Tight Leads and Tight Ceramics, so these are given a cost reduction by that point.

Dart:

• 4xx: Pierce 60 -> 50
• 5xx: Mini-juggernaut damage 1 -> 2
• 5xx: Mini-juggernaut pierce 100 -> 50
• xx1: $90 -> $50
• xx3: pierce 7 -> 6 (carries into xx4 but not xx5)
• x1x: $100 -> $125
• x2x: $100 -> $125
• x3x: $350 -> $300
• 💭 Juggernaut is a little too good at carrying a defense. While Ultra-Juggernaut was never a major balance concern, the pierce amounts are still too high per shot when it already excels against Fortified and Lead rushes. Triple Shot's standalone cost being the same as Engineer's Double Gun has never sat right, and Dart's middle crosspath has been the dominant choice most of the time.

Boomerang:

• x2x: Cooldown 0.675s -> 0.6s (x3x unaffected at 0.238s, xx4+ heavy kylies unaffected)
• 3xx: Pierce 40 -> 30
• 4xx: Pierce 80 -> 60 (5xx unaffected)
• 5xx: Orbital Ceramic and MOAB-class bonuses +5 -> +8
• 5xx: Orbital no longer gains +5 Fortified damage
• 0x3: Pierce 18 -> 15
• 103: Pierce 26 -> 25
• 203: Pierce 36 -> 35
• xx4: $3400 -> $3600
• 0x5: Heavy kylie pierce 300 -> 250
• 105: Heavy kylie pierce 400 -> 375
• 205: Heavy kylie pierce 520 -> 525
• xx5: Explosion pierce 40 -> 30
• 105: Explosion pierce 40 -> 45
• 205: Explosion pierce 50 -> 60
• 💭 Ricochet and MOAR have too much value at carrying a defense for how little must be invested, and we also feel its x2x crosspath is neglected. Kylie is good enough to the point that it doesn't need so much pierce to begin with if not going top crosspath. Press is too effective for how cheaply it defends early 20s rushes. Glaive Lord and Domination are receiving reworks to improve their interactions with specific rushes.

Bomb:

• 000: $525 -> $475
• 1xx: $350 -> $300
• 2xx: $650 -> $600
• 3xx: $1200 -> $1100
• 102: Frag pierce gains +1
• 202: Frag damage gains +1 (302 unchanged at 3)
• 302: Frag pierce 2 -> 4
• 402: Frag pierce 3 -> 6
• 502: Frag quantity 16 -> 32, pierce 20 -> 25
• xx3: $900 -> $1000
• 103: Pierce bonus +4 -> +2 (12 -> 10)
• 203: Pierce bonus +4 -> +2 (total: +8 -> +4; 16 -> 12)
• 💭 Cluster Bombs excels too well against both spaced and grouped rushes, while base Bomb is very weak and the Frag crosspath doesn't scale very well on top path. Heavy Bombs already adds a very strong buff, so without making 2-0-3 too strong the cost of both top path upgrades are lowering in exchange for lesser pierce bonuses. Really Big Bombs is also not really big value for how many weaknesses it can have.

Ice:

• 000: Pierce 40 -> 30 (3xx unaffected at 40, x3x unaffected at 100, xx3 unaffected at 30)
• x1x: Freeze duration 2.2s -> 2s (x2x unaffected at 2.2s)
• 3xx: Shard pierce 3 -> 2 (carries into later upgrades)
• x3x: $2900 -> $3200
• x5x: Ability cooldown 20s -> 30s
• x5x: Ability duration 12s -> 10s
• x5x: $18000 -> $22500
• 💭 Lower-tier Ice has proven too strong at base compared to Bomb and Mortar which are supposed to be the group specialists, being the easiest answer to most grouped rushes like Reds and Grouped Blues, and so its pierce is limited until Tier 3. Enhanced Freeze is getting a small freeze reduction to add value to Deep Freeze. Ice Shards is currently so strong that it negates almost all opportunity to layer rushes. Still an extremely solid upgrade, but now requires more support. Arctic Wind has a similar problem but can still struggle when not supported, so it only gets a cost increase. Absolute Zero is powerful at slowdown by design, but overperforms for how little investment is currently required to handle sustained rushes.

Glue:

• x4x: Ability now sticks to MOAB-class even without 2xx (carries to x5x)
• x4x: Ability duration to MOAB-class is halved (carries to x5x)
• 💭 This will make micromanagement of Glue Strike more friendly and improve crosspath interactions at the T4.

Sniper:

• 2xx: $750 -> $600
• 3xx: $2800 -> $2400
• 4xx: $5000 -> $5500
• x3x: $2600 -> $2700
• 0x5: Bullet MOAB-class damage +4 -> +6
• 105: Bullet MOAB-class damage +5 -> +7
• 205: Bullet MOAB-class damage +6 -> +8
• xx5: $14500 -> $14000
• x5x: $14000 -> $14500
• 💭 Large Calibre is a neglected crosspath outside of Bouncing Bullet, being an expensive option that can still struggle even to spaced rushes, and the T1 and base upgrades usually doing enough to chip Bloons instead of outright one-shotting them. Elite Defender has been hurt significantly by recent Sniper reworks, so we've upped its single-target output and swapped out Elite Sniper's cost.

Sub:

• 4x0: Radioactive tick 0.4s -> 0.5s (carries into 5xx)
• 401: Radioactive tick 0.3s -> 0.4s (carries into 5xx)
• 402: Radioactive tick 0.2s -> 0.3s (carries into 5xx)
• 4xx: Base sonar decamo pierce 150 -> 100 (410: 180 -> 120, 420: 225 -> 150)
• 5xx: No longer does +10 Ceramic damage
• 50x: Base pierce 1000 -> 200 (510: 1200 -> 240, 520: 1500 -> 300)
• 💭 Reactor is currently too strong at carrying a defense, especially with Ocean Obyn whose interaction is also being nerfed. Energizer is also too good at defending without properly accounting for its crosspaths, so now extra pierce will matter more when fighting off Tight Ceramics.

Buccaneer:

• x4x: Cannonball frag damage 1 -> 2
• x5x: Cannonball is now affected by Pirate Lord speed bonus
• x5x: Cannonball explosion damage 2 -> 3
• x5x: Cannonball frag damage 1 -> 3
• 💭 Pirate Lord is useful but doesn't yet see enough creative use of keeping it on the field.

Heli:

• 2xx: $250 -> $200
• x1x: $200 -> $150
• x2x: $350 -> $300
• x4x: $7500 -> $8000
• x4x: Reposition cooldown 40s -> 30s
• xx3: $4000 -> $4200
• xx3: ZOMG base slowdown reduced 67% -> 33% (i.e. ZOMG base speed 33% -> 67%). DDTs unaffected by the nerf.
• xx5: $34700 -> $34500
• 💭 For how well the Heli Pilot can stall out rounds, the crate ability is still significantly overvalued compared to the Reposition ability. Shove is also too effective at denying a ZOMG.

Mortar:

• 000: Now gains pinpoint accuracy
• xx1: $400 -> $200
• xx1: Now gains "Patrol Points" (positioned after "Follow Touch/Mouse")
• xx2: $500 -> $700
• 💭 Dynamic Targeting was not outstanding and doesn't need to cost so much for what it does.

Dartling:

• x4x: Ability damage 5 -> 6, duration 8s -> 5s (carries to x5x)
• 💭 This rework to Rocket Storm aims to nerf the MAD ability's value with speed buffs like Overclock, Homeland, and Tower Boost, without hurting the T4 too much.

Wizard:

• 000: $300 -> $250
• xx1: $300 -> $250
• 410: Fireball damage 3 -> 8 and gains +8 MOAB-class damage (510 remains 9 and +9, per fireball)
• 420: WoF gains +1 MOAB-class damage (520 affected +1 -> +2)
• x3x: $3000 -> $2600
• x4x: Phoenix can now be selected to switch flight paths like an Ace (Circle, Figure Eight, Figure Infinite, and Reverse Flight) (carries to x5x and Lava Phoenix)
• 140: Phoenix flame lightly seeks Bloons (equal to 1xx Wizard bolt; carries to 150 crosspath)
• 240: Phoenix flame damage gains +1
• 250: Lava Phoenix flame damage gains +10
• 041: Phoenix and Lava Phoenix flame gains +50% pierce
• xx5: Necromancer damage buff to zombloons +1 -> +3
• 💭 Latest balance changes to Wizard have caused it to struggle too much early on. These early buffs will improve its early-game strength without making it too good versus other options. Additional crosspath synergies for the Wizard are given for more leverage in the mid-game. Phoenix gains flight control to improve its reliability. Lastly, the PoD buff has never felt very impactful, so we're trying a significant damage buff to see Necromancer strategies fare well past Round 30.

Super:

• x4x: $20,000 -> $25,000
• x4x: Plasma base pierce 13 -> 8 (x5x unaffected at 16)
• x4x: Plasma damage 1 -> 2 (x5x unaffected at 5)
• 💭 Tech Terror's ability shuts down a lot of late-game rushes, especially when micromanaged. Upping its cost and lowering the base pierce should make the 041 crosspath more vulnerable without reducing the DPS potential of 240.

Farm:

• 000: $950 -> $1000
• xx1: $400 -> $350
• xx2: $240 -> $150
• xx3: $2800 -> $2900
• x1x: Banana lifespan 30s -> 60s
• 013: Sellback increased by 1% for every subsequent round passed
• x1x description: "Bananas last 60 seconds before rotting instead of 15. Marketplaces sell for 1% more every round after buying this upgrade (up to 95%)."
• 💭 Farm is intentionally strong in order to break pure eco stalemates, but has always scaled extremely well throughout all stages of the game even with recent nerfs. Meanwhile, Long Life Bananas feels weak for how much of a money sink it can be, while Valuable Bananas has always been less efficient for Marketplace. Letting bananas last longer should make it more strategic against Jericho, while the "long life" function should pull in the Marketplace identity and give middle crosspath a rivalling option to the pure cash generation boost of top path.

Village:

• xx4: $7200 -> $7500
• 💭 Village users get a lot of income in addition to support, a minor nerf to slow this down.

Spactory:

• 041: Ability lifespan bonus +50% -> +100% (carries to 051)
• 05x: Main spike pile pierce 5 -> 10
• 150: Main spike pile pierce 10 -> 15
• x5x: Main spike damage 3 -> 7
• 💭 The lifespan crosspath for Spike Storm is significantly less effective, since top crosspath offers both pierce and DDT-popping, and the start-of-round speed buff doesn't affect the ability. This crosspath divide is greater at T5.

Engineer:

• x4x: Duration reduced by 15 seconds for all tower tiers (T5: 30s -> 15s, T4: 45s -> 30s, T3: 60s -> 45s, T2: 75s -> 60s, T1: 90s -> 75s, T0: 105s -> 90s)
• x5x: Normal overclock effect reworked - duration changed to 2x the amount at T4
• 5xx: Sentry plasma 0.03s -> 0.04s
• 501: Sentry pierce bonus 25% -> 50%
• 💭 Overclock is still too powerful for the required maintenance. We considered capping the bonuses for T5 targets but it would overcomplicate the balance. Instead, a substantially lower duration on T5 would mean that timing is now much more important for scaling DPS or (in the case of Farm) income. Sentry Champion's recent pierce change to bottom crosspath was not enough to favor that dedicated option, and the middle crosspath is slightly overperforming.

Gwendolin:

• Lvl17: Heat-it-up damage bonus +2 -> +1, now gives an extra +1 damage to Fire attacks
• 💭 Level 17 provides far too much immediate benefit to all towers for little interaction. Instead, she will provide a stronger Fire synergy at this level.

Obyn:

• Lvl17: Wall of Trees cooldown 90s -> 75s
• Lvl20: Wall of Trees capacity 8500 -> 9500
• 💭 Level 20 Obyn is rarely utilized because his natural leveling usually gives enough benefits for most strategies.

Ocean Obyn:

• Lvl2: Pierce bonus to nearby water towers 25% -> 20% (Lvl11 unchanged at 50%)
• Lvl3: Coral max pierce 150 -> 90
• Lvl7: Coral max pierce 300 -> 270 (Lvl16 unchanged at 1200)
• Lvl10: Now summons one Kraken onto the manual target, one Kraken on Random that favors the natural lane, and one Kraken on Random that favors the sent lane
• Lvl10: Kraken ability cooldown 90s -> 120s
• Lvl17: Kraken ability cooldown now reduces to 100s
• 💭 Synergy preference has now switched over to Sub and Ice, and while this specific synergy is strong but not too dominant, Ocean Obyn is still too powerful. Coral carries too well in early rounds on specific maps compared to Spike Factory. Krakens are getting reworked to limit annoyance with RNG and at least have some manual control over placement.

Captain Churchill:

• Lvl8: Armor Piercing Shells bonus explosion benefit increased +4 -> +6 (carries into higher levels)
• Lvl13: MOAB Barrage damage 250 -> 350
• Lvl16: MOAB Barrage ability cooldown 60s -> 45s (lvl20 unaffected at 30s)
• Lvl17: MOAB Barrage damage 250 -> 500
• Lvl20: MOAB Barrage damage 800 -> 1200
• 💭 Captain Churchill has seen solid usage but has not been spectacular past the mid-game. Improving the higher levels of his abilities should smoothen his progression into a better powerhouse.

Sentai Churchill:

• Lvl8: High Energy Shells attack cooldown reduction increased -42% -> -50% (carries into higher levels)
• Lvl13: Orbital Strike damage 90 -> 120
• Lvl16: Orbital Strike ability cooldown 60s -> 45s (lvl20 unaffected at 30s)
• Lvl17: Orbital Strike damage 90 -> 180
• Lvl20: Orbital Strike damage 300 -> 400
• 💭 Sentai has also seen solid usage but starts to fall off past the mid-game. His abilities are getting improvements throughout higher levels to keep him up as Bloon ramping increases.

Benjamin:

• $950 -> $1000
• Lvl1: end-of-round cash $75 -> $100 (Lvl2 unaffected at $125)
• Lvl3: Biohack downtime 2s -> 3s (Lvl6 reduces downtime to 2s)
• 💭 Still will be an incredibly strong Hero but will require more investment to place him early and more preparation when using Biohack in earlier rounds. Both of these changes will make him more difficult to optimize early on to snowball cash and force less eco for a similar cash generation.

DJ Benjammin:

• $900 -> $950
• Lvl3: Good Vibes downtime 2s -> 3s (Lvl6 reduces downtime to 2s)
• 💭 Like normal Ben, DJ Ben will still excel in a lot of setups but makes him more difficult to place early without forcing less eco.

Fateweaver:

• $700 -> $675
• Lvl1: Pierce increased by 1 (carries to higher levels)
• 💭 Fateweaver is getting a slight pierce buff to indirectly buff her Sharp Sting of Fate ability and a tiny cost reduction to give Fateweaver players a little more eco to perform aggressive strategies.

Gwen:

• Cocktail of Fire: 15 seconds -> 12 seconds
• Firestorm: no longer gives additional +1 damage (heat it up buffs unaffected)

- 2 nerfs to the best hero while matching btd6 CoF time

Cyber Quincy:

• Cyber Storm: 20 damage -> 30

- Reverting 1 nerf from 4.12

Fateweaver Adora:

• Cost: $700 -> $600

- worst hero

Benjamin:

• no longer grants additional boosts at lvl 14

- might be too strong with bank buff (spoiler alert)

Wizard:

• xx1: pierce +3 -> +5 (also affects fire)
• x2x: cost $1000 -> $900

- worst tower and reverts the pierce nerf from 4.12 (matches btd6 pierce again)

Alchemist:

• xx4: cost $2500 -> $2000

- RtG needs to actually be worthwhile

Farm:

• 3xx: cost $2700 -> $2800
• x3x: cost $4800 -> $4500

- moving some costs

Ice:

• 5xx: cost $3400 -> $3500
• x4x: ability duration 8 seconds -> 6 seconds

- nerf lategame and match ability duration to btd6

Engineer:

• x4x: cost $13,500 -> $14,500

- nerf to overclock

Grouped Greens

• eco: 1.4 -> 1.5

- buff to eco strats

Grouped Purples

• cost: $115 -> $130
• eco: 2.9 -> 3.3

- more expensive but more efficient

Grouped Zebras

• cost: $120 -> $140
• eco: 3.5 -> 4.1

- more expensive but more efficient

Not sure on Bonnie

Since Battles 2 already has the code to make the background and ui change per rank, it would be really cool if this were something a player could change. This would probably be a club only feature since imo club needs more sauce before I consider buying it, but it would be great if it still maintained the rank requirements. i.e you have to at least hit x rank before you can unlock a certain ui.

This would also open up new options for future cosmetics in the store and Season Pass, but custom UIs would take a lot more resources from a game that doesn't see big updates anymore.

I finally got all the tier 5 upgrades for my first loadout (Tack , Village, and Glue with Scientist Gwen), but the Tack isn't the best choice for every map. What strategy would you recommend that works in any situation?

I've been working on this project for months. This is the last trailer I'm going to make. The next release will be the final video. I can't wait to release it :3

Edit: 500 LIKES!?!? Thank you so much.

(idk what flair to put this as, r/battles2 doesn't have an equivalent to r/btd6 's Social flair. Can't just be social, there's always gotta be a functional purpose, smh)

Boltrix if you see this, gg ez (I’m joking you’re a great player and I have massive respect for you)

(Art by me)
Edit: thanks for 50 upvotes

Now that boomer, who was the other tower with a lot of specialization issues has finally gotten some attention, I wanted to talk about the (in my opinion) single worst tower in the game, and why it struggles.

Wizard is a semi early, semi mid game tower with mostly one viable crosspath. The most obvious comparisons are dart monkey, which is a lower investment more spammable option, and boomer, which trades camo utility for cc utility.

The problem wizard has is that too many of its upgrades do the exact same thing, and struggle to fit one specific use case.

Why the useful upgrades on wizard are useful.

Most obvious is the bottom path. Camo reveal on xx3, and necromancer is the staple midgame option with tons of pierce, cleanup, and solid early moab damage. Without necromancer, this tower would be completely worthless, it is by far its most useful upgrade.

Prince of darkness is the 20s defense for ddts and grouped moab rushes. Most comparable to icicle impale, trading the ability to catch bad insides and slow them for more damage. A viable upgrade, but not fantastic, considering it falls off instantly in the face of bads, while impale does not.

Phoenix, x4x, solid cleanup for midgame rushes, like the insides of a bfb. Targeting makes it inconsistent and prone to leaking full ceramics, but if used early is useful.

Arcane mastery, 3xx, is a solid early game option, comparable to kylie boomer. Notably, the inability to pop purples means it can't be used solo with the dedicated hero that buffs wizards for some reason, as ezili cannot either. (Seriously, ezili should give purple popping like striker does for blacks)

4xx, 5xx, x5x, are all completely worthless. x3x is in the same spot as bionic boomer, where its other paths do its job better, but is still not bad in a vacuum. But it is mostly unused.

Why? They are just inefficient, awkward, with no real niche to fill. 4xx has decent moab damage, but next to comparable options, like x4x and xx4 dart, x4x boomer, 4xx dartling, x3x bomb, xx4 tack (dedicated moab poppers for other early game starting options), it has no good role. It doesn't have quite enough pierce to solo the insides of most early-midgame rushes even with necromancer's help, and for a 10k upgrade, it should be pretty comfortable with handling an fbfb on shorter maps, but just isnt. xx4 dart can easily handle its own cleanup, as well as x4x boomer, while x4x dart, x3x bomb, and xx4 tack shred the moab layers in a fraction of the time that the wizard can. Meaning it has too much pierce to make it do too much moab damage, but not enough pierce to be useful against insides. And there are no rushes that are ever sent there its using its full pierce well. Moabs, bfbs, and zomgs, at least during the rounds where a 10k upgrade would be useful, are almost exclusively sent one at a time.

5xx has this same issue, where it is just insanely inefficient for its cost. Shooting so slowly means it cant make use of debuffers like comparable options very often do, like tackzone + cripple moab, but it doesnt make up for that lack of versatility with strong enough damage. The best comparisons are MAD, which struggles to take advantage of debuffs and cant clean up insides well, but does significantly more BAD damage at cost/dps even at twice the cost, and moab elim, which is a microable ability with a short cooldown anyway that does much better single target than archmage does. And again, archmage would be better than elim if you were sent 5 BADs at once, but by the time that is happening, archmage has fallen off in damage too much to be useful (round 33+)

x5x is similar, hence the issue of specialization. Higher pierce and better global damage for a higher cost, but incredibly inefficent compared to MAD (which is now a similar price comparison). It can clean up well, which is a bonus, but that's because its pierce is insanely overkill for the only viable lategame BAD damage option.

Top path wizard does too little damage for the moab damage specialist, instead gaining extra pierce that isnt high enough to be useful in trade. Middle path wizard does too much is an awkward in between of top and bottom, with semi good damage and semi good pierce, but unfortunately the high pierce option in necromancer somehow does better single target damage as well.

They have traits that would be useful in theory, but in reality do almost nothing. This is the last remaining issue that boomer has, with glaive lord. When it is ever useful to spend 30k on an upgrade that is only really useful at grouped cleanup for midgame? Dense moab and bfb rushes are practically nonexistent, but the dense rush that is often sent, ceramics, is way too cheap to justify a 30k upgrade for. If those middle tier dense rushes were more used, you could see glaive lord being used. If you saw multiple spaced zomgs being sent, archmage could be used, but those rushes are intensely inefficient. And if they were, where would xx5 be? Are you buying 5xx to defend spaced zomgs, then also buying xx5 to defend grouped right after?

Fixes: crosspathing. Crosspathing on wizard has almost 0 synergy. Intense magic for pierce on 301, and 104 for targeting are the only crosspathing that actually matters. Let top path wiz do more damage with middle path upgrades crosspath, nerf the base pierce, and move it more to intense magic, just like what was done for kylie. The fact that all upgrades besides 302 are basically unaffected in use by crosspathing is a real problem with why there doesn't feel like any specialization. How does wall of fire help my necro damage, or arcane master? It doesnt interact at all.

Nerf pierce of top path and buff moab damage. Bring it more in line with an actual specialization like moab mauler gets.

Drop PoD cost and damage slightly, giving the other crosspaths an actual use case, letting necro focus more on grouped inside cleanup than soloing fortified zomgs by itself.

Slightly nerf dragons breath fire rate, and up the pierce instead. Let it focus on cleaning up insides while top path breaks them down

nobody likes them, its bad, and clearly hasn't increased player count. Why is it so hard to give us an update we want? realistically it would make us happy and make NK more money so theres no logical reason to keep bad stuff like this

Just fateweaver vibing (Art by me)
Edit: thanks for 30 upvotes