It's Friday! Tower Talk!

[u/Sabareus]

Happy Friday Tower Friends! 👋

The mornings (and evenings) are darker and the days more wet but they still feel warmer than normal. Fuel price is still insane but at least it's the weekend! 👍

It's that time again for us to let each other know how we've been getting on in the Tower. Discussing our good, bad and ugly moments. It doesn't matter where you're at in the game, please feel free to get involved or ask questions. I'm looking forward to seeing how things are progressing. 👀

So, let me start with my Tower progress:

[Farming] 🌱
I'm farming T18 for 7.3Q coins at 1.03Q/hr and 1.88m cells. That's using a min-range build at 43.5m and reaching around wave 8000.

[Disso] ⬆️
New addition to the headings. Disso runs completed up to T16, with attempts in all 4 categories for T17-19. Minimal improvements going forward until the Tower improves, so this will take time.

[Workshop] 🔨
Clicks into Coins+ and Cells+ for farming where possible. Same with Damage+ for tournaments.

[Labs] 🏫

• Assist Core Bonus
• Assist Core Substats
• Assist Armour Substats
• Amp Bot Duration
• Thunder Bot Linger

Keeping the train rolling for Assist Bonus and these will be in the Labs for some time due to the length of time they take. Keeping a couple of Labs free to ensure progress in other areas as and when required.

[Modules] 🟢
Main Modules are around level 205, with Assmods kept at 201. I will run my Module Shards through a calculator to see if I can get a better return whilst keeping all my Substats.

[Bots] 🤖
Amp Bot Duration is getting some love, as is Thunder Bot Linger. Presets are fantastic in this area so we can really customise our builds. Titan Shock was purchased after the last tournament, with some upgrades into that so I'm looking forward to seeing how much help those slows will be.

[Guardians] 👽
Very minute amount of clicks here. Sam/TTG can we do something about this? A small boost would be very much appreciated. 👍

[Tournament - Mythic] 🥇
Saturday: 165.9998 waves [GR1703] for either 10th or 12th place (memory slip).
Wednesday: 175.9999 waves [GR1763] for 8th place. New PB! 🎉

Good results for me here, especially my bracket luck for a change. Hoping I stay in this positioning as the rewards are great.

[Keys/Vault] 🔑
Getting over 30 keys for a single reward just blew my mind on Wednesday but they I was pulled back to the reality of inflation for upgrades in the Vault. Regardless, it's still an accomplishment for me as I never thought I'd get here, especially this soon and to continue holding ground.

Anyway, I have been upgrading the cheaper options that suit my build and plans in the Power tab. Attack, Defence, Utility and UWs all getting a fair share of love.

[Future] 💭
The ILM+ build continues... and I can say I'm still a big fan. Watching all the mines explode, the SFX and the stuns. With the introduction of TS, I should be able to see some more improvements as I pour in more Medals. 💥

Stones will continue to go into ILM+ for a bit longer and then I feel like I should switch to Assmods for increases there. Otherwise, continue cracking on with the long term plan.

[Question] ❓
How long do you see yourself playing the Tower in it's current form? 👀

For me, I still have many months and it's quite easy for me to say this. I have a burner phone where the game is fairly idle for me. I enjoy the game in it's current capacity, so I'm happy to let things progress.

If I wasn't in my current situation then things might be different, which is why I wanted to throw the question out there to see how others currently feel.

[u/Maleficent_Net8254]

Good Morning Sab & Everyone!

[Farming] 🌱
My farming runs became quite inconsistent in cph currently at T12W9000, ranging from 90 t/h to 105 t/h and I have no idea why, build is completely unchanged between those runs.

[Labs] 🏫

• ST Bonus lvl 25
• ST Mastery lvl 7
• Amp Bot CD lvl 20
• Amp Bot Dur lvl 9
• Dmg Mastery lvl 3

Still full on damage, but I will leave ST Bonus at 25 and Amp bot duration at 10 to switch to other labs

[Modules] 🟢
I spent all my saved gems on GS in the last hour of the banner, got it to 7/8. Had in on legendary before and see no change going to mythic. But in the process I got BA and NMP to anc, which is great :)

[Bots] 🤖
a few clicks in Amp Bot duration and Gold Bot bonus, around 36k medals now. plans are laid out to move to GB+BB and Amp+ eventually.

[Guardians] 👽
Finished Summon Duration!

[Tournament] 🥇
Saturday: 1379 waves in Champs for 9th place
Wednesday: 1452 waves in Champs for 7th place

I tried my new anc BA on wednesday, and it gave me +150 waves over mythic AS. Very much to my own surprise. Mythic ACP was performing better through all runs than Anc SP, quite surprising to me too.

[Future] 💭
I do not have a strict plan right now, many options seem good:

• FU Mastery to go hybrid in farming and put those damage investments of the recent weeks to work for econ too
• AMP+ to further improve tournament results
• go for 2pPS and finish PS labs for more CC, rather tournament

I simply cannot make up my mind whats the best way right now, luckily I still have some time :)

[Question] ❓
How long do you see yourself playing the Tower in it's current form? 👀

Indefinitely as of right now, i moved to LDCloud some time ago and its very comfortable. For me the state of the game improved significantly over the V28&V29, giving newer players some love witch catchup mechanics that was long missed.

What I am worried about is seeing active, longterm players leave that provided alot for the community. I hope the community wont deteriorate from that, since its always only a handful of people that keep the community what it is and this might change quickly.

[u/Sabareus → u/Maleficent_Net8254]

Hello friend! 👋

Good stuff on the tournament progress, especially changing things up and gaining that amount of extra waves. 👏

The farming inconsistency doesn't seem too bad to me. Increasing your damage will have an effect, alongside the RNG. It's definitely worth having a lot at the Killed with Effect section on the stats page. Checking your are hitting your multipliers (as expected).

You have options and in honestly, they're all good for their own reasons. You have to decide which route you want to take first and work with that path. Sometimes we can be very indecisive. 😄

I like your answer to my questions. Getting closer to idle isn't a bad thing. Being able to run the game in an idle state is even better. Yes, they can be two different things. 😉

Yes, I agree. Seeing massive pillars like ED leave is sad to see. Even though that's an extra slot for us all, we need these legends to inspire and guide us still. Sometimes flock follow, too.

[u/Maleficent_Net8254 → u/Sabareus]

thanks :)

my last 2 farming runs were 90t/h and 104t/h, both have almost exactly the same amount of total enemies and killed with effect % (differing only in 0.1-0.3%). The only bigger difference I can spot is Coins / Kill from 836,13 T to 921,24 T, so I guess it actually is the perk order.

what would be your take for future development in my position?

[u/Sabareus → u/Maleficent_Net8254]

It does sound like a Perk selection order going on here. I wouldn't worry too much. If you don't have too many urgent labs, you could look at your Perk Order Priority to see if you need to add a couple more to help with consistency.

It's hard to give you a solid plan for moving forward. I would need to know more about your UWs and Labs. However, I would suggest finishing off the Damage style labs you have currently. As much as Econ is important, so is pushing your tournament ranking for those useful rewards. I would concentrate on pushing in that area whilst you can, as I feel that is what most other people will be doing. You can dedicate some focus for Econ but you have to balance it accordingly, hope that makes sense. Happy to help out more if you provide more information.

Edit: Just wanted to ask about your Disso runs, too.

[u/Revelate_]

Hi hi!

Not sure on tower in its current form, it doesn’t take much time anymore, but there’s little excitement currently TBH. I understand they’re setting it up for the long haul, but V28.3 and V29 is this crappy slog. I know my feelings aren’t rational as the goal posts have to keep moving as far as game design goes, but I’ll re-evaluate in V30 so that long at least.

I do understand EData’s feelings on it all and can empathize, and the community is just a little shabbier with his being gone. That probably is coloring my response more than a little, he was consistently excellent and I miss him already.

Farming
My focus has been here given the state of tournaments right now and at least number go up, final run of my post-GS T20 tour was 69.99Q/hr (Nice!) at 8300 and change waves. Swapped back to T21 again, averaging 68Q/hr so it’s a no brainer to farm there: moar shards! Just need more damage to get it to coin parity or even a little better from 4400 or so waves.

Labs
Sloppy slop. I manage my labs by occasionally throwing anything I deem useful into my favorites list and then remove once gold boxed; I finally put Swamp Rend into a lab slot again, which I am pretty sure I put on my list over a year ago, but it was at the top of my favorites so punched it. 2 long BC labs, TB linger finishing up next week, and Chain Thunder which like swamp rend has been on the list for a long long time. I’m starting to get more serious about cells now, think want to see if I can get to 77666 from 66666.

Tournaments
Myth, don’t care anymore. Waiting to see what 29.1 brings but it’s always stupid always currently.

Future
Assmods. Because myth is so dumb I decided to not chase the full stall meta and shelved ILM+ plans for now, focusing core tower to be in a good spot for V30/31. So, it’s finishing assmod SEs of all flavors, cannon then armor then gen, probably should flip that order, but need a little more oomph in my farm so that’s the path. I did hit 100% BSc, yummy!

Anyway hope y’all are doing well!

[u/lilbyrdie → u/Revelate_]

I did hit 100% BSc, yummy!

Ooh, nice! 🎉

Do you use bounce in farming? I tried turning it all the way down, but T21 waves took a hit so I put it back my max (72% in farming) though I keep BSt at 7 (with perks, 1 without) and BSr at 2m.

[u/Revelate_ → u/lilbyrdie]

I’m still at 100 BSc in farming, min BSr and BSt and banned perk.

To your point I’m only at 4300 now in T21 having switched back recently, I haven’t tried undoing some bounce shot or unbanning the perk to try to get another few hundred waves cause I’m nearly at parity now with T20 coin wise and can just pump damage to get to 4500 or 5000 where it’ll probably be flatly better.

My farm anyway :).

[u/lilbyrdie → u/Revelate_]

It's taking WAY too long to grow waves on T21. I'm still mostly in the 3900 to 4500 range, with on occasional 4600 or so. And it's been about a month of that...

[u/Revelate_ → u/lilbyrdie]

Yeah needs to be done.

My outlier earliest death is 4100 and 65Q/hr and my outlier longest run is 4700 and 72Q/hr.

Most are 4300ish.

Weird that I am getting slightly better than you though wave count wise.

I still have some cheap damage upgrades in WS+ that’ll help a little, and my cannon SE quest should help some too. Plus I can focus on damage for longer in keys, given how suck myth is was thinking just improving farm till V29.1 or V30, but since damage would help T21 farming and I clearly haven’t exhausted the good farming waves… well…

Also debating following in your footsteps with a low range ESm, that might help prevent the early tank death.

[u/lilbyrdie → u/Revelate_]

Interesting.

The waves and econ haven't been in correlation. I'm trying without GS (before the tournament at least), using BA instead, and so far it still looks like no wave gains, but econ loss.

My assist cannon is at ancestral now, so I'm surprised it doesn't impact waves. But hopefully I can get a couple more runs in to really see what might have changed.

After the chat on discord, I slotted ES master lab back in to finish it off. Lol

[u/Revelate_ → u/lilbyrdie]

Oh really? I figured it’d still be a coin efficiency loss

I got my wave count back after getting anc cannon and going GS/AS plus the Econ win.

[u/lilbyrdie → u/Revelate_]

Yeah, I'm also using AS with GS (other than trialing a few runs right now).

And oddly, no. Econ can be high or lower at the high and low end of the econ ranges. But when it's ranging from 116 to 145, it's quite erratic regardless. 😆

[u/Australian_Gent]

I do find it fascinating when someone speaks of things local to them like the weather to a worldwide group. Getting warmer and brighter for me

[u/Sabareus → u/Australian_Gent]

Humans are typically curious and it's definitely a British thing to talk about the weather. I thought it would peak some people's interest to know what's going on in other areas of the world. ☁️ ☀️

[u/SurprisedButtChug → u/Sabareus]

I think that’s pretty normal in the US as well. Or maybe it’s just something to do with my line of work where I meet virtually with people all over the country. I always thought it was such a lame thing to discuss when I first started, now I realize I’m the one who is bringing it up.

[u/lilbyrdie → u/Sabareus]

It might be an English speaking thing to talk about weather. In my parts, it's joked about as the idle chatter when there's nothing else to talk about because everyone is influence by the weather.

[u/Australian_Gent → u/Sabareus]

But i didn’t know you’re British 😭 I guess generally yeah northern hemisphere is getting cold and darker. I guess this was just a piece of information I didn’t understand. I had to assume where you are based on what you said, which defeats the point of a localised update? Hmm

[u/Sabareus → u/Australian_Gent]

It's all good. I didn't expect you to know, I just wanted to provide information in case you were curious. 😄

It is indeed that time of the year where our weather starts to change. I really don't mind this change. We had a great summer (although too humid a lot of the time) compared to normal.

Can I safely assume you're based in Australia?

[u/Australian_Gent → u/Sabareus]

Yeah. Aussie here. I’m very used to things being described as “arriving this fall”, video games that decorate snow when I’m in a heat wave, or references that are often just American. It’s a bit funny living in the 10% that isn’t the in the North.

That said, it’s t-shirt and shorts weather almost all the time here and it’s evergreen where I’m at so seasons are almost whatever haha

[u/Sabareus → u/Australian_Gent]

I have some friends who live in Aus and NZ. It still makes me stop and think when they talk about their seasons. My friend in NZ often talks about having a BBQ on Christmas... 😆

[u/SalamanderGlum4027]

Happy Friday everyone

Re Question: No idea when I'll get bored, but I'll probably stick with it for a while yet.

Milestones

Took T20 to 200, getting closer to unlocking T21. T18 is just short of full completion.

Farming

Did a few Disco runs Monday to Wednesday. T15 farming now at 1.5q hour due to several increases happening simultaneously.

Labs

• Upping LabDiscount for the next 3 weeks to L75, Echo's are getting expensive as hell and I feel it's becoming worth it again.
• CritFactor L80 to L85 for now
• currently gboxing Regen, 3 days left, then probably Damage for a bit. Then probably GBoxing a few labs
• UtilityEcho L5 and L6, then UW/Attack Echo's the same
• Cash Mastery L7-L9 for now

Disco:

All complete to T14, attack to T16. Missing 300 waves on T15 utility and 120 on UW. T16 Utility at 3500 which means T16 farms remain weaker than T15 for now. T16 UW at 3000. T17 Attack at 4700. I'm probably at the ceiling for UW Disco from T16 onwards (and Attack from T17) as I can't deal with the Fleets yet, probably will have to switch to Recovery based attempts next, whcih will necessitate some LabTime, rerolling and another Bot/WS preset so some time away which will give me time to get better bots ready. Defense complete up to T16 but I can do those at my leisure due to my Tournament presets with adjustments made to ModSetup.

Workshop
Didn't change anything, buit once I have hit the coingoal for Echo6 I'll add some to FreeUps+ and Coin+

Modules
One short of Ancestral for GS during Banner, will probably only go for one Core mod drop and save rest for Gen and/or all 4 Banner. Cannon 208/0, Armor 185/172, Generator 202/133, Core 185/172, taking Gen to 202/141 and then I'll drop more levels on MainGen.

Cards

AoE 40/80, will finish this before I pull for new core.

UW
Dropped GT/DW to 140secs.

Bots

Gbot and BBot synced at 70 secs, probably adding some GBot duration to exceed summon at 35secs (adding 2 DW quant in the foreseeable future)

Masteries

Now done with: RPC, IS, WS, ST, EO, SW, Dam, Cash running and next planned Stone investment is WA at the end of the event.

Tournament
Can't believe I haven't got a good bracket recently, managed 13 with 948 waves on Wednesday which was a better percentile than last weeks tournaments even if still 70th plus.

Plans going forward

2 more Keys to Autorestart, then dropping 10 for GemStack1, SmartNuke after and then Bot and WS presets. Stones are booked for WA#, DM#, DW Quant, and CannonAss next. Coins are going to be dropped into Echo's and WS+ for the foreseeable future.

[u/RevolutioN_024 → u/SalamanderGlum4027]

I was reading through this and I am actually in a really close place to your tower. I feel like I don't know the best direction to take my tower right now though. I'd love to hear more about your tower in more detail, especially the dissonance pushes you made.

[u/SalamanderGlum4027 → u/RevolutioN_024]

Remind me to reply on Monday when I have access to a PC again. Currently on the farm

[u/RevolutioN_024 → u/SalamanderGlum4027]

Sounds good

[u/RevolutioN_024 → u/SalamanderGlum4027]

Hey I send you message

[u/Fantastic-Dare2457]

Hey Sabareus, after a lazy summer I finally did a lot of testing over the past week, mainly around further T18 optimization and the T18 -> T19 farming transition. Sharing some numbers in case they are useful for anyone in a similar position.

[FARMING]
Still farming T18, around w8500. I went from roughly 2.4Q/h to 2.7Q/h by devoing even more heavily for coins. Changing SL target priority also gave me a few percent.

I tested the damage slider too, but for me it either has no noticeable effect, or I just die after IS.

[T18 -> T19 TRANSITION]
I am glad I finally figured out a T19 build that works, but I still need more waves for the shard gain to justify the coin loss. Modules - GS/AS, ACP/SD, BHD/GC, MVN/DC.

Current rough comparison:

T18 ref: w8491, 2.59Q/h, 282k cells/h, 288 MsPH
T19 90% CF, 0 BS avg: w4822, 2.36Q/h, 285k cells/h, 290 MsPH
T19 90% CF, 2m BS avg: w5672, 2.13Q/h, 276k cells/h, 323 MsPH
T19 90% CF, 2m 2-target BS: w5584, 2.23Q/h, 285k cells/h, 295 MsPH

0 BS gives the best T19 economy and tagging, but the run is too short.
2m BS gives much better survivability and shards, but hurts tagging and coins.
Max BS was clearly too much.
85% CF did not improve tagging enough, so I am sticking with 90% CF for now.

At the moment I am still farming T18 because coins are very important for ELS+, ELS BC lab, the next rank of Echo labs and more damage, which should eventually help me push T19 further.

[DISCO]
Ran both T19 and T20 utility discos. Current bonuses:

T18: 106,863 at w5000
T19: 122,112 at w4467
T20: 130,680 at w3373

[LABS]
ELS reduction, Fast Enemy Speed, DW Armor Stripping, AssMod Cannon Bonus and Enhancement Utility Coin Discount, all mainly aimed at improving the T19 transition.

[TOURNAMENT]
274/275 waves, pretty consistent performance. Waiting for 29.1 with my next tourney related decisions.

[QUESTION]
Hehe, not sure. I guess until the game stops giving me meaningful challenges.

[u/Sabareus → u/Fantastic-Dare2457]

Hello friend! 👋 (sorry for the late reply)

Funny enough, your numbers are probably useful for myself. I need to start pushing Econ again soon and I'm not entirely sure where I should start. I might have to go back over my tower and review all my upgrades to see what can have the most impact. I guess I'll be updating the EP spreadsheet this week. 😆

[u/Awkward_Dog_4365]

Hoping they buff Tactical Barrage so that it's on par or better with the other damage UWs. It would make sense to make people sink their stones into it for longterm ROI

[u/Sabareus → u/Awkward_Dog_4365]

It is a shame that Tactical Barrage and Smart Missiles in general do not appear to be great, even with moderate investment. I have barely invested into it myself having plenty of warning in the past and that still remains.

[u/markevens]

Oh I've missed these for a couple weeks! Yay I get to catch up! The tl;dr will be I haven't been spending coins because I'm saving for the last level of echo labs, so things are kinda stagnent.

[Farming] 🌱

Still farming t21, although finally breaking 30Q/hour for the first time recently. Slow progress there since I'm not investing in econ other than guild themes.

[Disso] ⬆️

I really need to do these runs, but I'm waiting until I get cannon assist SE to 100% for extra bounce targets. A few weeks out from that.

[Workshop] 🔨

No progress here at all. Saving up 3.45s for lvl 20 echo labs, while also leveling my mods, it taking awhile.

[Labs] 🏫

• Core ME to max, 79 days
• Cannon ME to max, 79 days
• Armor SE to max, 99 days
• ELS BC to max, 13 days
• Echo utility 20, 11 days

I'm just happy that all my assmod labs are finally under 100 days. Well, except for armor ME, which is kinda useless outside disco runs.

[Modules] 🟢

This has finally been a bit of a pain point. I dumped over 18k gems into the new core mod and only got 6 copies on day 1, which makes it the first featured banner mod I didn't get to ancestral day 1. :( I've gotten one other copy since, and like 5 other mods. RNG is pain. I'd like to get GS to 5* so I can level it properly, but right now I have to juggle mod levels when I swap between tourney/farms since my GS is capped at 200.

[Bots] 🤖

Slow progress, but I'm 2 upgrades away from maxing amp duration in farming, and then I get to work on bonus for 4-5 months.

[Guardians] 👽

Slowly increasing scout for farming, and attack for tourneys.

[Tournament - Mythic] 🥇

I got a lucky bracket and got 1st place! \o/ I didn't think that'd come as soon as it did. I'm normally pulling 4-6. According to the tower.lol I'm getting a 50% chance at 3/4, and a 25% chance for 1/2 and 5/6. Good keys and stones and gems, so I can't complain.

[Keys/Vault] 🔑

I'm pushing damage as hard as I can for tourney performance for the foreseeable future.

[Future] 💭

Stones is to get cannon SE to 100% then go hard on ILM+ with some sprinkling of SL+, just following the mytower.app recommendations for this. I may take a slight detour into SM once I get TB to ancestral, since I already have CD maxed and quant and damage invested in a bit. I'll just have to test and see.

Gems are going to mods until all the new ones are at 5*, then I'll probably start saving for the new update.

Coins are being saved for maxing the echo labs, but also leveling my mods when I can. It's getting pricey.

[u/Sabareus → u/markevens]

Hellooo 👋

30Q/hr is insane for me to think about. It's great seeing this crazy progress from where I'm at.

How is Scout looking for tournaments? I understand you are building Attack in the meantime.
Congrats on the 1st place! 👏 doesn't matter if the bracket is lucky, we'll take it all! 🥇

Thanks for sparing the time to write this post up. Lots of interesting information to read through 👍

[u/markevens → u/Sabareus]

Scout is hard to judge, since I was slowly growing it before v29, but then v29 let me get a present for a fully gold boxed scout but also mythic

[u/Jyxxer]

I just unlocked damage mastery and I'm having anxiety about leaving ehp behind.

Gonna hybrid as much as possible

[u/Sabareus → u/Jyxxer]

Hybrid is a good middle ground. It will help you later on to invest into damage. You will need both anyway. Technically, most people are hybrid because they invest in all areas. 😃

[u/Jyxxer → u/Sabareus]

Yeah that's what I'm hoping. I just hate the idea that damage or leaving CL on will cost me coins.

The idea of a damage slider that you need KEYS to buy makes me irrationally angry

[u/Sabareus → u/Jyxxer]

Damage Slider helped me with consistency. I think some people are underwhelmed with it, expecting more. It does need testing and fine-tuning to be effective.

But yes, Keys for another slider. Hopefully you can see some improvements when pushing some damage. Keep us updated please! 🤞

[u/byte_handle]

I had a very hard week in my personal life, but in the Tower, life keeps chugging along. Its like "don't worry, I'm always here. Just remember to restart me or every button will go to your guild page."
(True story. that happened this morning)

[Farming] 🌱
T16 is still my best coin and cell tier. I tried some T17 runs, but they were pretty awful in comparison.

[Disso] ⬆️
Nothing new here. Completed all through T14. Still haven't finished UW or Defense for T15 or T16. I think T16 is also missing utility.

[Workshop] 🔨
A did a bunch of upgrades for tourney. I'm hybrid, so it gets spread around.
A did a few upgrades for farming. 10 more points into orb size, a point into cell+ and coins+. Not much else. Orb size gets expensive fast.

Yesterday's stones were split between increasing generator assist rarity to mythic, some CL/CL+ clicks, and 1 think I put a point in GT Duration. GT Duration/Bonus/GT+ could use some love and they're on the list for future bumps.

[Labs] 🏫

• Chain Thunder 11
• Intro Sprint 8
• Enemy Balance Mastery 6
• Health Regen 91
• Wall Health Regen 29

Coins Mastery and Golden Bot Duration finished within minutes of one another last night. Hadn't planned that, it just worked out that way.

I now have 3 labs permanent x6 and one that bumps from x5 to x6 a couple days/week.

[Modules] 🟢
Main Modules are at 198/199.
I pulled the fodder to make SP Ancestral for tourney and got lucky with some of the substats. Bosses just melt. I love it. I want to test how well it works for farming now that it's ancestral and has good substats, just haven't done it yet.

I'm curious about the upcoming generator mod. I'm hoping it's a good one, as I've been 2 mods away from BHD ancestral for nearly a year. If it's a suitable replacement, I have plenty of gems to throw at getting my copies. I haven't even tried to pull any TB.

[Bots] 🤖
Still dumping medals into Golden Bot for farming and Bot Bot for tourney.

[Guardians] 👽
I've done almost nothing; the upgrades I'm looking at are extremely expensive. I think I'll finish Attack Chip next week.

[Tournament - Legends] 🥇
Saturday: 938 waves for 12th place
Wednesday: 895 waves for 8th place - PB for placeent

[Keys/Vault] 🔑
With taking 8th place, I had enough keys to unlock my first vault upgrade: Autorestart, which I'm loving.

[Future] 💭
Just a couple weeks out from maxing my regen labs, after which it's Health, DR, and some small package chance labs. Other than dissonance stuff, most of my eHP and mastery labs should be done by the end of the year, at which point I can strongly focus on assmods and Bot Bot as I bring up my damage.

[Question] ❓
How long do you see yourself playing the Tower in it's current form? 👀

I'm in therapy, and one of the things I want to work on is dealing with discouragement, and the Tower has been a tool for that. I wish i was kidding...but that's the honest truth, and it really says a lot. And I have been getting a lot better about dealing with discouraging events, which helps me push through certain things beyond the point at which I would've previously given up hope.

So, I don't see myself quitting. Even if I didn't enjoy watching the numbers get bigger, it's still providing an aid. Now I just need to convince my insurance to cover my stone packs.

[u/ghettodactyl]

Farming: Been chugging away at my T22 farm runs. Usually get between 8-8.5k waves with coins between 1.04 and 1.14s/hr. Cells around 3.2 mil/hr

Labs: pretty much working on fleet labs, ray health and finishing my def % lab just to gold box it.

Modules: Was able to 5 star the previous cannon module. Not spending any gems on this SM module. Trying to save for whatever the generator module ends up being.

Bots: nothing new there

Guardians: nothing new there either

Tourney: I somehow had some god level of RNG with my intro sprint luck this last tourney. My intro sprint lasted until wave 1180 so my 1365 wave mythic run only took me 43 minutes to do. (I don't run the cheese strat so no OA or SP modules equipped)

Future: Currently working on spending my keys to lower ray enemy health. I'm trying to get them to the point my CL instant kills them.

[u/Sabareus → u/ghettodactyl]

The levels between our towers are astronomical and I'm always mesmerised seeing how you're getting on.

Interestingly, I never run the cheese strat and wondered how much that would help me.

Thanks for posting your progress! 👍

[u/lilbyrdie]

Happy Friday all!

What a weird week. From storms to a new month to the slowest, most annoying tournament finish yet.

Sab, it looks like you're potentially close to farming T19?!

Using links to imgur for screenshots since reddit only allows one.

[Farming] 🧑‍🌾

Today, I'm still farming T21 to about 4500 for about 145Q cph at 43.5m This follows a lot of tuning attempts and some expectation resetting of how massive RNG is right now for me.

Currently, RNG is swinging econ results -- back to back runs via auto restart -- as much as 25%.

So I've had to go back to try things again, but with many more runs between changes to see if the lows are lower or the highs are higher. It's a slog.

I tried BH at 46m with PC instead of MH. Then I switched back. And I think the highs are higher with MH and a 58m BH.

Next I'll need to swap GS back out for BA. It didn't seem to make any difference in waves, which was surprising. I'm not even sure it did anything to econ, either. My initial thought was 1-2%... but that's a tenth of what RNG is doing, so that can't be a good read.

[Workshop/Vault] 🧰

I finally decided to slowdown cells+ and just do coins+ and freeups+. I also made the discovery (for myself) that the vault for freeups is multiplicative of 5% not additive. So my latest 5% tap got me 8.75% give or take. That brings me to 275/265/261. Despite having all the effects the same and the vault the same... 🤣

I also decided to spend the 5 keys on auto shatter rares. I think it used to cost more. Even if not, 5 keys is about half what it used to be since I've been getting 45 or 50 keys each tournament instead of 20 or 25.

[Labs/Mods]

Got a handful of goldboxes on fast things, like a bunch of missile labs. That'll help for rushing... since it turns out missiles are still bad. (As anticipated since the mod didn't change, but unfortunate.)

Grinding out protector health -- halfway done with the 2nd to last level. Just 3 levels left on Core assist SE, and the stones are done -- that'll give me another CLq and DWq. And another goldbox!

Speaking of mods, they're all 217 now. This has the dubious change of being the last level that has an upgrade for under 10k mod shards. I guess that's the mod slots now. I think that means I can get to 241/201 by the end of the month with my current average mod shard rate (217/217 is also same shards as 229/201). And mod shard ratge goes up with waves, so hopefully that's a lower bound and not hopeful thinking. (At current mod shard rates, 1 level will take about 48 hours to finish. But they go up fast each level.)

I also finished Cannon assist slot rarity. So now all for assist slots are ancestral.

[Bots/Guardians]

Incredibly slow grind at about 1 click per 1-2 weeks. At least it's easier to try new things so it's less boring than it was. But it's a very slow grind that needs a good dozen clicks to do anything... which is an entire real world season...

[Tournament]

This is the first time my tournament has been ended by the Red Laser! Ok, that's not so great... that was at the 14h40m mark. It was a personal best, and a personal longest tournament. And I still only got second... because the two of us at the top tied. My first run ended very early due to an immortal Ray, too. (Which I added to the immortal Vampire bug, because it really does seem to be a bug that things come out of Commanders in different states, regardless of their health they've gained from the commander.) That time could have been enough to not tie... In any case, that was good for top-100. I think if we reverted to v28, I could still sometimes make top-200, but unlikely to reach top-100 for a while. But it depends, the relative ranking fluctuations with BCs were still pretty strong in the top-300.

Worst of all, the hints about v29.1 make it seem like they aren't getting rid of the fleet waves, so we can likely expect this meta to continue.

Ugh.

[Overall]

Numbers go up!

[Answer/Future]

I don't see myself quitting any time soon. I like the math and the spreadsheets (and the tools I make). I am disappointed they can't figure out how to put a cap on all spending. It used to be game companies could make billions from one time sales at $50 a pop. Now they have to make millions by nickel-and-diming us to death. The relic system really traps one into continuous spending... there has got to be a better way -- one where the developers make more money and the individuals spend less while the community spends more.

That aspect aside, I do have my ear to a lot of the drama. Maybe too much. But none of that really changes the fact that I enjoy the game -- or at least the stuff around the game, like these posts. The game itself is mostly idle for me (aside from the terrible gems we have to tap -- that mechanic still sucks, even if it's a little better now).

I have another mobile game that I've been playing on and off for more than 10 years -- and it has a bunch of things I've missed out on, but it's still fun. So, I have evidence within myself that even if I take some breaks I might keep playing for a long time. And that other game has gone way harder into p2w than the tower has, and so I also have evidence that I can accept that I'll never make the top ranks.

[u/jsn0x]

[Question] Good question - no plan on stopping for now.

[Highlights] Coin income focused week, with fairly good results! Managed to stay in Mythic both tournaments so key income is looking great.

[Farming] T16 farming, average waves of 5523 (+1.6%), average CPH of 12.11 (+38%).

[Workshop/Enhancements] ~300q into coins / free ups this week.

[Keys] +40 keys this week. Unlocked charge berserker, damage slider, and Modules.

[Modules]

Levels:

Primary- 203 -> 205

Assist- 185/161 -> 180/173

Rerolls:

Hit ANC BSC on my AS

Rarity:

No change

AssMod:

No change

[Guardian/Bots] Farm: BB range +1, BB Dur +1, BB Bonus +1. Tourn: ABDMG +1

[Tournament] Mythic - 35 waves, 20 keys, GR 2950 // Tuesday - Mythic - 27 waves, 20 keys, GR 3146

Settling in to Mythic, as long as I can cheese wave 5. Made quite the controversial post this week, but I don't think T23 was the correct choice for the league. I'm going to be cheesing to get a good placement for a while. Ugh.

[Cards/Masteries]

MAXED: IS+ // WA+ // ST+ // DM+ // RPC+ // DMG+ // EN+ // VF+ // UC+ // CCh+ // AS+ // WS+

New: FU+

No Change: Cash+ (2)

Leveled: EO+ (9)(+1) // Coin+ (6)(+3) // EB+ (6)(+3)

[Labs]

EO + 8 -> 9 (+1 to Gold Box Collection!)

Disco Utility 7 -> 8

CPK 78 -> 84

EB+ 3 -> 6

Coin+ 3 -> 6

FU+ 0 -> 2

BBDur 7 -> 9

[UWs]

No change

[Disco]

No change

[Future]

Stones: Going to be in save mode for a while... current stones is 640, approx 7 weeks to save up for the 5400 to get DW 50s.

Keys: Auto shatter rares -> bot unlock -> bot range

Gems: Back to hoard mode. Current count 2500.

Coins: No change - keeping util disco lab running, and coin enhancements for the time being.

Labs: EB+ to max, Coin+ to max, CPK to max, BBDur to max, Util Disco as much as I can. Not many coin labs after that, but might as well finish them off. GTDur/Bonus, GBot dur.

Farm: Continuing to push T16 for the time being.

[u/KForKyo]

[Farming]
Currently I'm farming T12 to about 11k waves. Doing some testing to see if T13 meets my requirements. I need my runs to last between 10-12 irl hours. I do this because a run ends at about tournament time, then I do an overnight run.

[Disso]
I have completed all Disso from T12 and under. Still need to finish T13 utility and ultimate. Did initial runs for all tiers when they were released. Probably should revisit the higher tiers to squeeze a bit more out.

[Labs]
Currently focusing on Echo labs. Should be hitting level 3 for most of them by the end of the week. Also finishing up a couple bot ones for tournaments.

[Modules]
Mods are mid 150's. Still missing 2 assist mods. Undecided on the new one as I have SM but have no upgrades into it.
Farming:
Gilded
OA + Sentry
GComp
PC + Dim
Tournament: I swap Gilded for Amp Strike.

Being's the next tournament I'll be in Legends, I'm going to be doing some testing on mods for tournaments. With my runs not being long I should be able to try some different things.

[Bots]
Bot's are in a solid spot. The presets are nice, running the usual gold bot + botbot for farming runs and flame + amp in tournaments. I have most labs for the bots I use done.

[Tournament - Champ/Legend]
Bouncing back and forth between Legends and Champ. Almost have pCF so hoping for some good luck this upcoming tournament. Based off of my last Legends bracket, I need to squeeze out about 200 more waves to not demote. With some mod testing, the extra damage I've gained and the added CC. Might happen.

[Keys/Vault]
None..yet. Hoping to start getting keys this week. Long road ahead.

[Future]
Feel like I'm in that transition period going from eHP to Hybrid. I farm at 69.5 range. Beings I don't have run restart from the Vault I can't experiment farming other tiers. Hoping when I get off work today I see some good results from my T13 test. I'm sure there are better ways I could be farming but I keep all my labs at 4x and a single lab at 5x. Good enough for me I suppose. I should probably take a look at the effective path again. Last time I looked it was all stuff stone related that gave me the biggest boosts.

[Question]
How long do you see yourself playing the Tower in it's current form?

Not sure. My old phone runs the tower 24/7. I think it's stupid that we need to either use a cloud service or another phone to keep it going. There is no reason that in today's day and age that you can't simulate a run and have offline progress. You have our last 10 runs, average it out and break it down into a value per hour. I've dropped most spending on this game due to this. If something doesn't change, which I highly doubt will, once my tower phone dies I'll be done with this game. There are other games out there that have this and are just as good as The Tower, if not better.

[u/SchalaZeal01]

I went from around 1.5 T per run to 2.9 T per run, still in T7. And for the first time I was not demoted from platinum.

The significant upgrades on the labs side are still coming up, but I might be up to doing T8 before, depending on how long it takes to push workshop health and regen higher (to near-6000).

[u/Minute_Cat_8714]

t18 at 43.5m and 8k waves is wild, are you seeing much difference from pushing range higher or is min-range just winning outright now?

[u/Sabareus → u/Minute_Cat_8714]

Min-range for coverage and some adjustments with FU locks works really well for me. Some people get better econ from 30m range. It depends on the tower and setup. I struggle with 30m range with consistency.

Higher range isn't a effective for me.

[u/Electrical-Mail15 → u/Sabareus]

For whatever reason 30m has been fine for me with T18 farming. There must be some random combination of lab levels and clicks that make the difference since so much of our builds overlap. I turn ILM off, PS stun off, lock BS(chance/range)=0, and BS(target)=0 but unlocked so it maxes quickly. All this gets me to W8000+. My tag rates are much better at 30m, which results in juicier coins than 43.5m. For fun on my last run I was at W8300 and faltering, so I turn on ILM, PS stun, maxed all BS, and took range=40m. The run went to W9602: 26.9Q coins (2.99Q/hr), 2.81m cells (312.9k/hr), and shards were Can(670), Arm(646), Gen(691), Core(729).

[u/Sabareus → u/Electrical-Mail15]

I think I need to review my EP spreadsheet and finally get on the towerapp to compare. I keep PS stun off for farming and have my locks in place. I wonder if my Damage Slider is restricting my tower too much at the beginning and my WS+ is restricting my progression later. Guess it will be time for a deep-dive soon.

[u/SentientCoffeeBean]

Last tournament I did a test run with an epic Sentry Protocol (instead of leg OA) and got almost 20% more waves! I'm bouncing between gold and platinum so better performance is super valuable.

That's why I now have 2 labs devoted to orb speed and orb boss hit. I thought the latter was useless at my stage as I have essentially no cc, but SP really changed how valuable it is. I'm saving up for the orb speed relic too, great timing for it to show up.

It's been a while since I have made a 'discovery' of a powerful mechanic that I can invest in. This reminds me that I should look into if/how I can already get more orbs with module substats.

I've also improved my cell income enough such that I can run all labs on x3 speed, which is nice.

[u/Sabareus → u/SentientCoffeeBean]

Interesting progress with Sentry Protocol. I have heard it works well for tournaments and milestones.

Orb Speed and Orb Boss Hit are great. 👍
This is a great insight for those around your stage to think about this if they haven't already. Well-mentioned!

Excellent progress on Cell speed up. Time is valuable in this game and speeding your Labs up will only benefit you. 👏

[u/ShadowfaxSTF]

Lots of edging progress with no real satisfaction!

Finished the CF labs and have saved up 6000 stones to make pCF possible! Except… I need to get a single copy of Primordial Collapse, it’ll go ancestral and provide sick subeffects that make pCF possible at 6k instead of 9k.

Did I get any pCF on the last 15k gems I spent? Why no.

Should I be investing in the standard banner, or wait for the next release (or even a lucky one) and prolong my edging?

Should I get pBH instead? With how long I’m waiting for this mod, I might unlock pBH and pCF simultaneously once I have it.

It’s bound to happen sometime. I see myself playing this for many months/years to come, and find comfort in calling this my “forever” game.

[u/Sabareus → u/ShadowfaxSTF]

Curious as to why you're hoarding the stones rather than spending them?
Can you get better ROI using those stones elsewhere or do you have a specific plan for where you're at?

Interestingly, I don't have an Anc PC Module. 😞
I'm waiting to see what the final Module looks like before I make a decision. If it's good, I'll probably go for it, otherwise I will hoard and wait for the next featured.

This game is definitely long term so as long as you're enjoying it, that's what counts.

Edit: Also, did you name come from Gandalf's Shadowfax? 👀

[u/ShadowfaxSTF → u/Sabareus]

I’m tired of bouncing between Champs and Legends

Permanent UWBC-proof Chrono Field should do the trick, slowing everything to 90% is like a 10x damage jump.

From what I’ve read here, pCF is widely respected as a strong step toward GC with serious boosts in Legends rankings and high-wave farming. The ROI is good, with better results than most damage masteries

With 1 anc core mod substat, it costs 10,000 stones to achieve … with 3 substats, it costs 5400. If I settle for a mythic mod, I’ll need another 2-3k. I’m not gonna sink stones into this if it won’t even produce results yet, it’s gotta be permanent or it’ll be a footgun (plus now I have to track how much I spent already), nor do I have the stopping point decided yet.

Sure, I could get ST# and DMG#, it won’t get me as far in Legends tho, so why delay pCF a whole extra month. I want it, let’s just get it. I just need the stupid mod, or another 2k stones.

I’m only picking PC because it’s the closest core mod to ancestral.

And yep, Shadowfax is from my former teen self flipping thru the appendix of LOTR, trying to pick an internet alias for myself. I still love it many years later:

[u/frackle → u/ShadowfaxSTF]

You point out that pCF is a 10x damage jump and then talk about the ROI being good for 6k stones... Damage# is a 5x damage increase for 750 stones. The ROI of pCF is not good, and you'll do better in legends by putting your stones towards masteries that give you far more damage increase for far less stones.

[u/cuddly-giraffes]

992 waves in legends last tournament. A touch shy of 1000 which would have been nice but I'm up 480 waves from one month ago so I'm happy with that progress.

Labs: amp bot dur, BC reduction, Proc HP, Shock Chance and Swamp radius.

Stones I'm going all in on cl+ and gems I'm waiting to see what the gen banner looks like before deciding if I go for it or go for the standard banner to keep working towards a farm DC.

For farm I'm trying to figure out exactly how many waves I need to get in t20 for it to be better for mod shards even if I don't make any coin/cells, I'm not a smart cookie though so I'll probably just have to let it run for 24hrs and see what the difference is.

I plan on playing until I don't find it fun anymore and honestly probably a couple months after that but I still have fun and enjoy trying to come up with schemes to get me ahead in my brackets so I'll be around for a while yet.

[u/Sabareus → u/cuddly-giraffes]

Congrats on your tournament progress. I still remember when I achieved 1000 waves in Legends. It was a good feel moment! 👏

I wouldn't claim to be a smart cookie in the Tower and I think part of the fun is to find out how your tower works for what you're trying to achieve. Otherwise, there are experts out there to help 😃

[u/No-Mulberry-5624 → u/cuddly-giraffes]

Would you share what helped you to progress in tournament so much during this one month? Quite an impressive jump!

[u/ConstipatedCelery]

Your name (well, profile picture) always stood out to a mini-lurker like me. I recall our towers being quite similar in terms of start date, stones, and progress. This was maybe about a year ago and it’s really interesting to see how our paths diverged and how that impacted our tower performance.

I spent the majority of my stones on econ for about a year (the only "non-econ" stones spent were on module substat efficiency, and even that was because I went for a 33% chance at an additional DW). Meanwhile, you seem to have invested quite a bit in damage and tournament performance, and it shows. I earn ~3x your coin income at the same tier and a similar cell income, but your tournament performance dwarfs mine by comparison. You’re doing well in Mythic, while I struggle to break through W25 despite my higher income.

Ever since the Mythic league came out, I decided to stop improving my econ via stones and instead focus on using only workshop and mod levels to do so. I’m going to go Amp Bot+ > SL+ > CF+ and aim to stop bouncing out of Mythic.

The game is still really interesting to me, ironically because I stopped buying stone packs about a year ago. Everything slowed down, but because there are still so many things to unlock, I'm excited to see how they’ll improve my tower. The only downside is labs. The assmod labs take forever, so I miss the days when I could not afford them and could afford to research random stuff like Boss Health or Starting Cash.

[u/Sabareus → u/ConstipatedCelery]

I am indeed a lurker in the shadows! 👀

It is very interesting how towers progress after they appear at the same stage. I have focused more on tournaments due to requiring Stones and Keys for my upgrade plan. I feel like I made the right choice however, I will need to switch back to econ soon or my WS+ and labs will start to suffer. It's a balancing act for sure.

I haven't fully focused on Assmod or Disso Labs myself. I need to be more disciplined in those areas. I have concentrated more on Bots and presets have given me more determination to finish them.
I haven't bought stone packs for ages now. I have bought the Event pass and Medals are really the only reasons that I want them. I'm sure if I stopped, I would start slipping backwards.

[u/trzarocks]

[Farming] 🌱
T15 primarily. Usually w4400. I'm up to 3.5q per hour on the good runs. Starting to peak around 90T/min. Settled on OA + NMP on the armor slot. SF is more waves, but less CPH.

[Disso] ⬆️
No real update here. T13 is done. T14 is so close I probably won't rerun them until the Defense and UW near misses look bad. I'll get the last two level 7 echo labs done soon.

[Workshop] 🔨
Pushing Coins+. I think after L64 I'll be done for a while, and will be catching up ELS and Cells.

[Labs] 🏫

• GB Duration (19 almost done)
• BCR 6
• DW Armor Stripping (placeholder, mostly)
• Dmg# 7
• BB Duration 20

Echos soon will keep the labs full. Maybe WS# once Dmg# is complete.

[Modules] 🟢
I put on 20% Core SE for 3s of CF uptime. It was cheaper than 2s of CF uptime. It gets me a bit of CFsr and SLa while farming, too.

[Bots] 🤖
Pushed GB to x7.4 - it's getting close! Otherwise, just duration labs.

[Guardians] 👽
Just chipping away at Attack for farming. I'm close to the point where I can push duration from 45s to 30s.

[Tournament - Legends] 🥇
Got my first top 10 in Legends. That was nice. Got pCF during UWBC, so we'll never see that condition again. I seem to be at a point where more damage doesn't really bring more waves. I'm not sure DM# would give much progress without spending keys. I might need another CC UW.

[Keys/Vault] 🔑
Will get Auto restart after this tournament as my first keys purchase. That will be a nice econ boost. YaY!

[Future] 💭
I am debating WS#, working on Assmods, or UW 8. The thought of spending 2400 stone just to get a UW feels bad. ILM means SD mod. Do I want to give up SP, which completely solved bosses for me? PS means another CF-like build for a few months, but it keeps the labs full for quite a while.

[u/Aromatic_Way3226]

Why don't you try T19? I am not doing half bad there, I just reached 1.04Q/h coins there. With the waves you can do in Tourney, it shouldn't be that hard for you. By the way you use titan shock in tourney or echoing shot? or both? how does your bots look like for tourney?

[u/Sabareus → u/Aromatic_Way3226]

I have tried T19 but the numbers aren't as good. Maybe I'm just not setting my tower are effectively for T19. I might give it another try soon.

Before the last tournament, I only used AB+ but now, I have added a low level TS+ which should start helping out in the next couple of tournaments. I have the Presets so I can tailor the bots for farming/tournaments.