Doomsday Machine on Level 9: How To (3.5 Mech guide)

Hello, I'll post here a sketch of a Mech guide for those who desire to have a Doomsday Machine on level 10 and also, a few lumbers. I recommend you read and use this bounty chart HERE so you can have a better lumber development during save gold rounds.

It's important to say that this guide only works if you upgrade a Doomsday Machine on Level 9 (building another Neotank usually does not work well, Doomsday Machines are 3x stronger) and also,  VERY IMPORTANT : You must have a maximum of only 4 wisps before you get your DD Machine, reason is: if you do a fifth wisp, you will need another farm to build your DD Machine, and this will cause you a lot of trouble because low wisp count on early can get you "farm trapped" quite easily and also, you'd be paying for a whole farm and would only need 1 food, so avoid at all costs the fifth wisp. Go for lumber upgrades instead.

LEVEL 1:(230 value)
+ 1 Pyro.

LEVEL 2:(290 value)
+ 1 Infantry.

LEVEL 3:(460 value)
Promote Infantry to Pyro.

LEVEL 4:(520 value)
+ 1 Infantry.

LEVEL 5:(715 value)
Promote Infantry to Pyro.
+ 1 Peewee. (Deploy him a bit further ahead of your Pyros)
During Round: Save the gold you earned.

LEVEL 6:
No build.
During Round: Save again.

LEVEL 7:(1075 value)
+ 1 Neotank (If you're building your fighters close to the wall, deploy it close to the directly opposite wall you started building)
During Round: Save once more.

LEVEL 8:
No build.
During Round: Save one last time.

LEVEL 9:(1480 value)
Sell the Peewee.
Promote Neotank to Doomsday Machine.
During round: Build farm and buy wisps and lumberjacks until arena.

LEVEL 10:
No build.

TOTAL UNITS: 3x Pyro ; 1x Doomsday Machine.

Recommended Fighter Placement:
DD = Doomsday Machine
P = Pyro
X = Peewee

Code:


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| . . . . . . . . | by: Tower_Mazer|
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Special Thanks:

Many thanks to Tasos for showing me his awesome Mech build so I could figure this out, thank you very much!  

Template for unit placement, taken from here.

Hello NERV,
Well i already swa this build and it works fine , it`s a fun t play build, i like it. It also inspired me t test some builds without zeus myself

I don't see the point of getting doomsday so early. It's not as good (better than some but not good) as most people seem to think it is and with that build you'll leak 2 bosses on 10 even with good focus. After lvl 12 you'll probably be leaking 13 - 15 as well.

I like to play this build because I do go incomer on mid game, and I feel safer having a dd machine deployed already, so i can do something like 3300ish value fo level 17 and still hold (3 dd machines and 1 neotank and the pyros), but yeah, there are many leaks on mid if you go for this, so you must go for lumber... For level 14, sometimes i try to pull double Krogoth or at least one Krogoth and 2 Cyborgs, and as you can see in my suggested placement, I do use the whole lane when I deploy my stuff, I think that way i can make better use of my dd machine, since they don't get busted by being surrounded together, they are one on each side of lane(just like my Krogoths). Yes, it does suck for boss, but it works wonders for creep killing.

I'd like to point out that dd machine is amazingly strong at level 10. dd machine can pretty much solo a boss on a 1v1 fight and still keep orange hp bar, so I'd say that at least one boss is sure kill. If you get a split on boss(either because many small sends, or just pure luck) you can manage to kill all 3 of them. DD machine hits like a mad truck and pyros are just like meat shields.

The main issue i got with this build, is the lack of income on early. You can do for 7/0 instead of lumber upgrades, but that'd cost you a farm, so i'd rather go with lumber upgs, even thought they hurt my income a lot in the begging and on mid.

Even with that 7/4 lumber on level 10, It's very hard to play incomer on mid stages when you have like 30 income. It's is possible to do better than that, but i am usually the guy that upgrades the king every-so-often, and, as a pub player, I can never tell how my teamates will do, so i gotta prepare for my leaks and their eventual leaks. Sometimes the whole game just go very nice and I can go full on sends.

My mid game with this build is far from perfect (and it is not easy to play this and do well on 31+), that's why i would only post 10 levels, and that's why i called it a sketch. Anyway, for level 14 i recommend Krogoth, but you'll pay the price on level 16. If you go really full dd machine, there will be leaks, but you should be stronger for level 17.

Level 13 is really hard, I don't know what do to.

Level 15 is also hard, but a leak on level 15 is excellent, don't you think

Level 17,18,19 and 20, there will be leaks, unless you got a lot of feed somehow and already have your 7/16 and your value is already coming back.

Finnaly, I find level 12 extremely easy with 1 dd machine and double cyborg or if you prefer, the weaker version, but stronger later: 1 DD machine and 1 neo tank. Even if you leak due to massive sends, you'll have killed a good bunch of creeps. Thing about level 12 is that dd machines are too weak against the most common send on level 12: Ballista. Plus the fact that like 99% of the people do not send on level 11, you better have some teammates to catch your leaks if you go for that build!

The reason for early dd machine is because, unlike Zeus, DD machines keep their efficiency the whole game. However, I am not saying Zeus are bad, but they do have their drawbacks. DD machine don't have any great drawback, except for the high cost and lack of AoE, but in late stages of the game, these drawbacks go away and early dd machines instantly do pay off (even with very low values, levels 21 and 22 are a joke for dd machines, so it is a great chance to kill some sends and increase value).

Best regards,
NERV.

I see what you are saying. Two bosses on 10 and then leak 13 - 15 is just a bit too much in my opinion and that placement seems a bit strange. Doomsday is not the type of T6 I look to upgrade right away. Warden, hydra, hades, ToK, and maybe dragons are what I go for but even with the 20g reduction I'd place a second neotank before I upgraded a doomsday that early.

I actually went and tested it myself and 3 neotanks handles level 12 better than 1 neotank with 1 doomsday if they have similar value from support infantry. The only place this might make the smallest of differences is on lvl 17 but you are giving up a lot for that and I don't think it is worth it. Neotank mech builds generally don't upgrade to doomsday until lvl 16 and they already struggle with 13 - 15.

I'm of that opinion that doomsday could use a small buff/change/ability and that the 20g reduced cost wasn't enough. It's an awkward unit with low hp for it's cost (fortified armor or not) and 450 range preventing it from being a strong tank. However, it's dps is at least somewhat decent. It's too much investment into single target damage early on and a lot of levels punish it for having siege damage. Even with the hitbox reduction it still takes up a lot of space and it's unique 450 range isn't necessarily a good thing either as it fights for room with other towers later on. The only reason to use it at all is if you really need siege/foritfied or think you can take advantage of it's high hitpoints with oracle damage reduction buff and heals to delay deaths cause a 3k healthpool can be efficient with damage reduction and heals.

I might be downplaying doomsday a bit but I've never thought very much of it. The 20g cost was definitely helpful and it's useful for dumping value. There aren't a ton of levels that cater to it like level 24 does. Overall ehpg boost from [ 3.72 ] to [ 3.82 ] and dpspg boost from [ .450 ] to [ .461 ]. Comparatively neotank has a ehpg of [ 3.91 ] and the same dpspg of [ .461 ] that doomsday now has (so the cost reduction did at least stabilize their dps output). Of course this all comes down to health values of each wave and 1 neotank will die faster than 1 doomsday so you'd likely loose dps a little faster. There's many factors to take into consideration. With the cost increase of leviathon and it's health remaining the same it now has a pitiful ehpg of just [ .338 ]. So while leviathon now has mediocre dps it's health is so low that it's still not that great to use (not to mention the awful crowding issues of it's own and it's weird range).

Edit: We've done testing with leviathon after the "buff" and it's still not worth using. I don't know what else to say about it except that it could use more hitpoints and/or range and/or a smaller hitbox. Speaking of leviathons hitbox another issue that has been bothering me in mega is mass dragons/leviathons/fenix/griffan/etc. The problem I'm referring to is the crowding issue where they spread out really badly. This can be bad for focus but more importantly it can cause unusually large split that I'm sure we've all noticed. If you have more than 1 person massing flying units like these at the end then they will create a huge circle that that extends beyond the square box formed by all your ground units. This has always been a problem in 3x mega moving away from 1.6 but those flying units were never considered that good in the first place. Most those flying units still aren't that great but in games where people mass them it is noticeable.

Indeed, if you got a few neotanks you can do a bit better than only dd machines, i suppose it is because no AoE at all, so more fighters can handle the creeps better, and also, for some levels, dd machine is a bit overkill, so you happen to lose some dps as well... you've got it right. Gotta agree that neotanks do a lot better than dd machine on level 12, but level 10 with neotanks is hard fail. I like dd machine because i don't mind the leaks so much, i'd rather be killing as much as possible before my fighters die.

Regarding dd machine usage, it is a weird fighter indeed, but I think dd machines do very well on late game, and was already one of the strongest fighters, since 3.41. Not sure if i agree with more buffs though...

And yeah, if you consider playing mech without -cb, i don't see many reasons for one to deploy a leviathan... heavy armored is nice, but it is really a glass cannon fighter, but if you got lucky wit procs, leviathan does very well, since it's the only AoE-a-like fighter Mech has.

about flying units, i think they are awesome on arena and on level 31+, but yeah, sometimes when on lane i do notice flying units behave very weirdly, but then again... i think it's part of the game. a few drawbacks for a few advantages.


Regarding my weird placement, i only go for it with units without AoE, i think it works very well for Mech.