What's the point of single target defenses?

Stuff like Lightning Aura or Sand Viper.

Unless they only target the most powerful mobs, are they not going to hit the little ones/whichever are in front every time?

It's supposed to be placed strategically. Ofc, if you place them so they hit enemies when they are crowed and where there are both trash mobs and tankier mobs, it's mostly likely to hit a trash mob. But if you place an AoE defense to kill the trash mobs and then place a single target defense to hit enemies that survived the AoE damage, then it's going to target enemies that didn't die (so no more trash mobs at that stage).

Well that's the ideal situation, but ofc because of balance not every single target is very useful. Take for example the LSA vs Earthshatter. LSA is really better since it costs 40 DU and earthshatter costs 80. Earthshatter can get insane damage, but LSA already has enough damage to one shot enemies. Why hit harder if you can already one shot enemies. And of course, that's forgetting the fact that certain AoE defenses can already kill all mobs without the help of single target defenses, like the flamethrower

@MushroomCake28 quote:

It's supposed to be placed strategically. Ofc, if you place them so they hit enemies when they are crowed and where there are both trash mobs and tankier mobs, it's mostly likely to hit a trash mob. But if you place an AoE defense to kill the trash mobs and then place a single target defense to hit enemies that survived the AoE damage, then it's going to target enemies that didn't die (so no more trash mobs at that stage).

Well that's the ideal situation, but ofc because of balance not every single target is very useful. Take for example the LSA vs Earthshatter. LSA is really better since it costs 40 DU and earthshatter costs 80. Earthshatter can get insane damage, but LSA already has enough damage to one shot enemies. Why hit harder if you can already one shot enemies. And of course, that's forgetting the fact that certain AoE defenses can already kill all mobs without the help of single target defenses, like the flamethrower

This pretty much. I've been experimenting with placing cannonball towers after my flamethrowers, with decent results so far.

@MushroomCake28 quote:

It's supposed to be placed strategically. Ofc, if you place them so they hit enemies when they are crowed and where there are both trash mobs and tankier mobs, it's mostly likely to hit a trash mob. But if you place an AoE defense to kill the trash mobs and then place a single target defense to hit enemies that survived the AoE damage, then it's going to target enemies that didn't die (so no more trash mobs at that stage).

Well that's the ideal situation, but ofc because of balance not every single target is very useful. Take for example the LSA vs Earthshatter. LSA is really better since it costs 40 DU and earthshatter costs 80. Earthshatter can get insane damage, but LSA already has enough damage to one shot enemies. Why hit harder if you can already one shot enemies. And of course, that's forgetting the fact that certain AoE defenses can already kill all mobs without the help of single target defenses, like the flamethrower

Earthshatter doesn't just do more damage, it attacks faster than LSA and benefits more from Speed than LSA does. But in the end single target defenses are worthless in the current state of the game.

DU limits are just to low to be able to build using both single target and AOE towers. One simply has to choose, and ofc AOE wins because it is far more useful knowing we all have heroes that can help on single target if the AOE towers are not enough.

Doesn't help that most of the single target towers do less dps/du than the popular aoe stuff.

Imagine if the viper tower cranked out 200-300k dps even with a ramp up. That would be semi useful :)

unless they make single target defenses target highest hp mob unless they all ready do?

@mindlessdefender quote:

unless they make single target defenses target highest hp mob unless they all ready do?

They don't.

Agreed with most of the sentiment in this thread - single target defenses are extremely lacking right now. I've actually never seen a single one used in any chaos build to-date.

Even if they target the highest HP mob (which, as a fan of deadly striker tower in DD1, I think they're perfectly fine without targeting them) they still won't be of much use.

It sounds disgustingly overpowered at first... But really, single target towers need to do a least 3x the DPS (or at least burst like earth shatter) per DU compared to AOE towers to be worth using.

And even then, I think the DU limits (I talk a bit about them here if you wanna see...) are what really hinder their use.

Earthshatter needs to be AOE... that is all

@๖ۣۜPhoenixX quote:

Earthshatter needs to be AOE... that is all

Possibly have the mound of ground create an obstruction for like a second or so as well. Helps grouping them up.

Either A combo of that, or AOE + lower DU costs.

@Ratiasu quote:

@๖ۣۜPhoenixX quote:

Earthshatter needs to be AOE... that is all

Possibly have the mound of ground create an obstruction for like a second or so as well. Helps grouping them up.

That is actually a nice idea, although TE will have to make it slower if they decide to implement this. 

Either way, AoE is a must.

@MushroomCake28 quote:

@Ratiasu quote:

@๖ۣۜPhoenixX quote:

Earthshatter needs to be AOE... that is all

Possibly have the mound of ground create an obstruction for like a second or so as well. Helps grouping them up.

That is actually a nice idea, although TE will have to make it slower if they decide to implement this. 

Either way, AoE is a must.

It WAS AOE before. And tbh, almost everything in DD2 has become AOE already... if the tower isn't already AOE, it usually has a shard that makes it. I am honestly happy earthshatter ISN'T AOE...

The obstruction thing sounds kind of cool, but I honestly don't think we need yet another AOE tower. Earth shatter has a lot of cool unique traits that make it great for single target (super high burst, massive range, and can target through walls).

Hate to repeat myself... But I really just think it comes down to its DPS per DU, and our current DU limitations.

@Zimmermann quote:

DU limits are just to low to be able to build using both single target and AOE towers. One simply has to choose, and ofc AOE wins because it is far more useful knowing we all have heroes that can help on single target if the AOE towers are not enough.

Not true. I regularly incorporate LSA into my builds with great success. 

@gigazelle quote:

@mindlessdefender quote:

unless they make single target defenses target highest hp mob unless they all ready do?

They don't.

Agreed with most of the sentiment in this thread - single target defenses are extremely lacking right now. I've actually never seen a single one used in any chaos build to-date.

The LSA´s are not lacking if used correctly.

@xArcAngel quote:

@MushroomCake28 quote:

@Ratiasu quote:

@๖ۣۜPhoenixX quote:

Earthshatter needs to be AOE... that is all

Possibly have the mound of ground create an obstruction for like a second or so as well. Helps grouping them up.

That is actually a nice idea, although TE will have to make it slower if they decide to implement this. 

Either way, AoE is a must.

It WAS AOE before. And tbh, almost everything in DD2 has become AOE already... if the tower isn't already AOE, it usually has a shard that makes it. I am honestly happy earthshatter ISN'T AOE...

The obstruction thing sounds kind of cool, but I honestly don't think we need yet another AOE tower. Earth shatter has a lot of cool unique traits that make it great for single target (super high burst, massive range, and can target through walls).

Hate to repeat myself... But I really just think it comes down to its DPS per DU, and our current DU limitations.

It was better before with high damage on the primary target and fall off damage around it. Beside with that huge rock animation, it doesn't make sense that it hits only 1 enemy. Even if they reduce the DU, I would probably use cannons or LSA instead. 

@MushroomCake28 quote:

It was better before with high damage on the primary target and fall off damage around it. Beside with that huge rock animation, it doesn't make sense that it hits only 1 enemy. Even if they reduce the DU, I would probably use cannons or LSA instead. 

I probably would too, which is why I wish they'd raise the DU limit back up (to make room for these higher cost towers) and increase its damage to give it that long range, no where to hide nuke feel.

If they just made it AOE again, I'd just use PDT's or flames. Earth shatter really just needs its own identity/niche rather than generic more damage of a different flavor. Otherwise towers just get compared to each other and we take the slightly more optimal one.

Does Earthshatter still 1-shot frozen enemies? I wonder if it would be worth using with an Orb & Attack Rate shard + Frostbite Tower with Frosty Duet & Empowered Frostbite + Frosty Proton Beams.

Probably not... Even with a maxed orb & Attack Rate you could only get it down to 1 attack every 1.37s and odds are it's going to end up attacking an enemy that's not frozen.

@Hom-Sha-Bom quote:

Does Earthshatter still 1-shot frozen enemies? I wonder if it would be worth using with an Orb & Attack Rate shard + Frostbite Tower with Frosty Duet & Empowered Frostbite + Frosty Proton Beams.

Probably not... Even with a maxed orb & Attack Rate you could only get it down to 1 attack every 1.37s and odds are it's going to end up attacking an enemy that's not frozen.

Pretty sure they still 1 shot frozen enemies, but as you said, attack rates still to high to be worth their cost.

Also, if you ARE interested in trying that strategy, I'm pretty sure squire cannonball towers still do crushing damage and can 1 shot frozen enemies. I used cannons during the days of the trap meta to shatter monsters and help focus down bosses.

@Hom-Sha-Bom quote:

Does Earthshatter still 1-shot frozen enemies? I wonder if it would be worth using with an Orb & Attack Rate shard + Frostbite Tower with Frosty Duet & Empowered Frostbite + Frosty Proton Beams.

Probably not... Even with a maxed orb & Attack Rate you could only get it down to 1 attack every 1.37s and odds are it's going to end up attacking an enemy that's not frozen.

This freezing strat could potentially be used with the shard that makes reflection beam torpedoes crushing damage.

who still knows the time, where LSA was so powerful that we just spammed the whole map with them and afked? Or when they reached millions of dps thx to frosties + boostaura (buffed by frosties as well)? xD funny times but absurdly OP.