but then it looks strange with costs as

100 mana
100 mana
100 mana
etc

500 MANA!

If CJ would give on combination the empire would be so much easier to balance.

We could find better balance for earths as they would not be tied to miners

We could maybe give airs a mana cost.

we could give units less gold cost and more mana cost

what cost would be ideal for a infernos? 850 gold 100 mana is stupid

we could make a unit like that require more mana and less gold something like 400 gold 400 mana

Quote from HattoriHakuya

Lel XD. Jk I'm sorry tho I took the tsundere joke a bit too far.
Anyway, we could either apply the giant tree logic to sandman by giving it an upgrade, or maybe by increasing the cost. Ele needs a late game buff. It also needs something to counter kiting. But the tank is what's most important as of now, I guess

I think a late game tank is important, but ele would play a lot better for everyone if the mid and early game were more, well, fight orientated. I'd like to see ele's early game units able to cope against archers and ele turtling via statue and chompler eco dominance nerfed. Edit: Yeah actually giving ele counter archer options would be the counter kiting options you mentioned after all.

Ele has too many problems xD

Okay so as I was contemplating as to whether I should get membership again, I came up with an idea.
I call it the V combinations. Basically, V combines with another unit to create something.
Example: V + Earth=Sandman which is basically the equivalent of a Giant. Going out right now, and I'm impatient so I posted this. Will expand more later.
V+water=Healermon, since Ele have nothing to heal and waters are pretty bs right now. Maybe more than just a meric since its like 1700 gold

I don't think making ele even slightly more gold dependent is the answer.

It would be nice to find ways to make the V more useful without making it obnoxious, but I think the way forward is going to be more utility, stats, or mana, not gold.

Idk if this has already been said, but 2v2 matches would be cool.

Archon mode for SE. Imagine all the desynced kiting!

Quote from Skeletonxf

I think a late game tank is important, but ele would play a lot better for everyone if the mid and early game were more, well, fight orientated. I'd like to see ele's early game units able to cope against archers and ele turtling via statue and chompler eco dominance nerfed. Edit: Yeah actually giving ele counter archer options would be the counter kiting options you mentioned after all.

Ele has too many problems xD

Maybe, but changing the early game would unbalance elementals, I think that it might encourage less combining because the base elementals would have to be strong enough to deal with archers. Earths that can turn into miners and be strong melee units etc. would be a bit op I think. The whole idea is that the four elements are weak, but if you take your time and start combining you can deal with everything.

V already takes up a lot of resources and population, creating another layer of combining is cool but it would upset the balance of 9 units per empire.

2v2 is an awesome idea, I thought of it before as well. But I think the main problem is latency, four guys in one match could make it very laggy, but I'm not very sure. They would have to make different colors and probably bigger maps. I think multiple towers and maybe an infinite gold mine farther out like in stick war would be good. The balance of two empires in one side could be bad, but I think it would create a whole new level of strategy which would be good. Flash games like colony have managed 2v2 so I think Stick empires would be able to have 2v2.

Quote from IHATETHISNAME

Archon mode for SE. Imagine all the desynced kiting!

Because you need two people to macro :P

Quote from nutsophast

Maybe, but changing the early game would unbalance elementals, I think that it might encourage less combining because the base elementals would have to be strong enough to deal with archers. Earths that can turn into miners and be strong melee units etc. would be a bit op I think. The whole idea is that the four elements are weak, but if you take your time and start combining you can deal with everything.
V already takes up a lot of resources and population, creating another layer of combining is cool but it would upset the balance of 9 units per empire.

That's a good point, we need combinations to be worth getting. However, I think we don't need ele to have a response to archers without combining without also making it totally able to deal with archers. In OvC for instance, bombs and cats discourage early archers well, and act as a decent measure against them around the 2 min mark, but they aren't anti archer enough that Chaos can never bother buying Deads or Wings. They're a temporary stop gap that forces Order to start with swords and transition into archers later on when Order has the eco for it.
With some change, ele's earths, waters and airs may be able to also act in that overarching theme (but very different micro) of being a response to archers in the early game without allowing ele to not bother buying combination units to deal with archers as Order gains eco.

Quote from nutsophast

2v2 is an awesome idea, I thought of it before as well. But I think the main problem is latency, four guys in one match could make it very laggy, but I'm not very sure. They would have to make different colors and probably bigger maps. I think multiple towers and maybe an infinite gold mine farther out like in stick war would be good. The balance of two empires in one side could be bad, but I think it would create a whole new level of strategy which would be good. Flash games like colony have managed 2v2 so I think Stick empires would be able to have 2v2.

Right now a 1v1 game involves the server, and each player pinging back to each other and communicating, obviously adding in 2v2 then is going to raise that from 3 connections to 5, almost doubling it.

Therefore I think for any viable 2v2 with micro we would have to slow the game speed down by by a factor of 1.5 or more to account for the added delay. Honestly just the macro games of it would still make me find it engaging, C+E versus O+C for example would be crazy.

-Tree can root air units again

-Fire range increase upgrade added

-Airs don't fire like shit anymore*

-Albows get a buff in either training time or cost

-Waters actually heal well now

-Castle map is made slightly larger | Removed

-Blind gate replaced with mirror gate**
[Cost to be decided]

*
Instead of shooting | then | they will shoot ------> or something better

**
Reflects things thrown at it for a time. Not in a straight line (-----) but shooting outwards in a curved way
(
-
-
-
-
-
)
or something better

@skele I see, what you can do however is use a combination of waters and earths to basically fight archers though not kill, like cats and bombs. And then later you combine into trees. However I'd like to see what you want to change.

@kaito
Tree root yes, maybe meteors. I don't think fire should have an upgrade, maybe increase range but def not as an upgrade.

Airs are fine, superb even, the only problem is proper tanking.

If they fix water heal many things will be fixed including the use of charrogs.

Keep castle, there's nothing wrong with it.

As for mirror gate, I'm not so sure. I think that ranged units won't be able to keep shooting into the blind gate, and perhaps they slow down while walking into it. They could make blind gate something that can be destroyed, like a wall. Or they just make a dust elemental. I know that it will break the balance of having 9 units, but they already have scorps and chomplers anyway, just make it like a weak support unit that does no damage.

Quote from nutsophast

@skele I see, what you can do however is use a combination of waters and earths to basically fight archers though not kill, like cats and bombs. And then later you combine into trees. However I'd like to see what you want to change.

I've tried this tactic, and it works till Order buys a second archer. Then the water just can't push in without taking too many hits. I'd like to see the water move speed buffed and earths given a shorted stun time but quicker attack animation, among a few other minor changes I don't have time to list.

True, it becomes hard when order gets 2 archers for ele, I don't disagree with that. Just saying though but when order gets 2 archers in OvC cats and bombs can't push and you're forced into the defensive, just saying. Increasing the speed doesn't sound half bad, if you do increase speed you don't have to change earth though. If you want maybe you can list the changes when you have time? Only if you want, I'd just like to know what you think will help elementals.

I will make a full thread with these lists sometime when I get around to it.

You're quite right, two archers really makes chaos struggle as well early, but remember that Order won't be getting those two archers instantly into the game, that would be suicide for Order because Chaos will stall out with crawler regen and come back to the archers with bombs and a stronger eco, ele on the other hand doesn't soft counter early double archer as well right now.

Here's my early game list still in progress

1. Increase earth queue time to 6 seconds
2. Halve earth transform time to chompler to 2 seconds
(Make Ele less able to rush out crazy amounts of Earths {nightmare for Order on small maps} or out eco Order/Chaos via having inbuilt faster Chompler building via earth queue stacking)

3. Increase Earth animation attack speed so archers and crawlers can't cheese the animation
(Make Earths more reliable and useful in fights)
4. Halve the Earth stun duration so it takes ~6 Earths instead of ~3 to stun lock (for less cheesy gameplay in general, and needed if Earths given an attack speed buff to stop Earths being too strong)
5. Increase Water movement speed
6. Give Water a small 'hypothermia' damage tick for frozen units it's on (possibly not needed, I can't guage how well these changes will help Ele against Order in terms of Archer pressure, so this one is very uncertain)
7. Nerf CAir slightly so it can't 2 shot archers
(Promote Ele going for a Earth+Water early macro against sworcher by giving ele more reliable but less stunlocky responses to archers and swords)
(Make Ele forced to fight in the first few mins instead of turtle by nerfing Ele turtle options)

8. Give Airs an upgrade for 50|50 60 seconds that stops them derping by heavily reducing the huge delay on their auto attacks
(Airs with this removed by default could insta win short maps via Air start so this can't be given out at start game)
(This should make Airs somewhat effective anti archer in the transition to mid game but not before and allow Ele more attempts to snipe archers rather than turtle away from them, without making airs able to insta win a game or be anti archer immediately)

9. Nerf death blossom so it deals less outright damage (keep the stun duration)
(again, promote more interactive play, deathblossum can be used for knocking up archers to then dive them with Scorps, Earths and Waters instead of just forcing Order to garrison weak archers by the high damage currently)

My general goal with this is to allow ele to respond to Sworcher with:

Earth 'spam' (obviosly less spammy with the queue change though) with a few Waters for Archer lock down and a gradual transition into Airs for a stronger anti archer macro as Order gets a stronger eco and can start buying Archers in a stream, and then go into the much more familiar Charrog/Tree mid game with Fires or Airs for ranged support to deal with Spearcher+Meric