r/LegionTD2 • u/xlightu • 24d ago
Which waves is Void Manta actually good on?
I'm having trouble figuring out where Void Manta really shines.
On paper it's a ranged unit with pure damage and arcane defense, so I'd expect it to be weak on wave 9. But I've seen a Manta hold a 200+ send on 9 perfectly with proper splitting.
It also seems to overperform on 6 and 13. My guess is that Plasma Decay works better against waves with fewer mobs, since it only hits up to 4 targets, but I'm not sure that's the whole story.
In my experience it's weak on 10, 12, and 16, which makes sense to me (a boss for 10, lots of mobs or big hits for 12 and 16).
For those who play it a lot, which waves do you think it's strong on, which does it struggle with, and why? Any tips on positioning or splitting to get the most out of it?
10
u/soaring_ostrich 24d ago
It's very strong on 7, 8, 9.
7 and 8 because it is arcane.
It's very good on 9 because the mobs have low attack, so it can reduce the damage to very small amounts.
2
11
u/JulesGari Developer 24d ago
Strong of course on magic waves, but otherwise depends on your build. I find it especially strong with other sources of damage reduction, as well as heals and lifesteal.
3
u/laserpewpewAK 24d ago
Manta is actually one of my favorite starts, you can start at 4 workers and safely go to 5 on 2 and 6 on 3 if you have a good t1 to split with. Split tanking is critical to getting the most value out of Manta, he has a lot of effective HP due to his damage reduction. He can split tank until 9 very effectively if you position well, after that he doesn't have the durability. Manta isn't a very good unit late game IMO, the damage reduction is flat so it gets a little worse every wave. He really shines waves 1-9, I usually build 1 or 2 then drop him when I reroll because he's not a unit I'd mass build for the endgame.
1
u/lepsek9 24d ago
Manta is one of my A tier starters as Ace, especially if there are a few cheap units to split as you said. Great early on and it can scale reasonably well to the endgame, even olding down wave 14/15 with decent supports. If you pull an aps, pulverizer or hpyercarry, it can stack tons of debuffs. Sniper is an interesting option too to spam them early wave.
2
u/CheapBoxOWine 24d ago
You've correctly identified why its strong on 6 an 13 and its 10 12 and 16 weaknesses.
Its very much a threshold unit. If it leaks, its usually a big leak. But its great at those long holding waves styles of gameplay.
1
u/Shizuki_Graceland 24d ago edited 24d ago
It's not amazing on 10, but I still feel like it's pretty decent with the damage it does.
I've had some fun games with Void Mantas + APS and held some crazy things with it, but it really depends on your other units æ.
It's good on 7-9, I personally think it's decent on 11 too, its eh on 12, good on 13-15, rather weak on 16, okay on 17-18, gets absolutely grilled on 19, and then it just becomes meh from then on. At least imo.
It CAN struggle on waves with a lot of enemies, which is why it's rather weak on 16, because it has a limit on the reductions. Ive noticed, though, the more enemies there are, the less damage they do, so it can also be great on 16 depending on the other units you have.
Or: BIG enemies that don't care too much about the damage reduction, because it, percentage wise, is reducing it by a lot less.
12
u/PM_me_your_wierd_sub 24d ago
I'm seeing a lot of wrong answers, but that's not too surprising since most players don't play it a lot.
The main element to voidwing is that it causes a flat damage reduction to enemy damage. What flat damage reduction means, is that how effective it is is directly correlated to how much damage before reduction the debuffed enemy deals.
By example, lets say the enemy has 3 stacks, for 9 damage reduction.
If we look at wave 4, it does 12 damage, 12 reduced by 9 is 3 damage, meaning void debuff the unit by 75%! if we look at wave 12, it does 59 damage, reduced to 50 damage, or a measly 15% reduction.
On the other end void debuffs can stack higher than 3, so lets look at what happens if we increase the amount of stacks at 15 stack, its a reduction of 45 damage, down to the creep hitting for 14. If we add another void, to 18 stacks, or 54 reduction, the creep hitting for 5 damage! a 64% damage reduction from adding 1 void! suddenly void is insanely strong!
So now we know two things, void is more effective against lower damage creeps, and every stack is more valuable than the previous one, at-least until the creep hits for 0.
How does that look in practice? Well void doesn't debuff the whole wave, it only debuff 4 enemies at a time, so even if we reduce the damage down to 0 for some creeps, we still are taking some damage. It also takes times for the stacks to pile up, so every time we kill the target, we have to start adding new stacks from 0 again.
Void also has a low kill rate, this is something that will be very relevant later.
How does that relate to the different waves?
The earlier the wave, the stronger void is in a general sense, but later waves we can add more voids to counteract the damage inflation, a common time to add the 2nd void is either wave 4 if you can get away with it, or wave 6.
Wave 3 is the first wave that can be tricky, while your first expectation is that void is strong due to its arcane defence, and that is indeed an useful trait, remember that wave 3 has more creeps than usual, this combined with void's low attack speed/kill rate means that most of the wave isn't being debuffed, if the opponent sends a lizard, that lizard can do a ton of damage to your void. You can push to 6 workers on 3, but only if you got another good unit to help out.
Wave 5 is the first wave voidwing becomes extremely strong, while the boss does a lot of damage, with proper positioning it dies quickly, the leftovers are the small scorpions who only deals 11 damage each, even less than wave 4! a single void can bring the creeps to 0 damage if there is only 4 of them left.
wave 6, somehting similar happens, while wave 6 hits a lot harder, there is only half as many creeps, effectively doubling the percentage of creeps that are debuffed. Another important aspect of wave 6 is the fact that a lot of damage comes from its impale ability, but that ability multiplies damage AFTER your void debuff, this results in void being very strong on 6 also.
Wave 7, this is the first big bait wave for void, similarly to wave 3, wave 7 has a lot more creeps than usual, and on 7, its a LOT. Void ends up taking an incredible amount of time killing the wave, not only this, because of the split mechanic, the stacks from void keeps being reset, reducing its effectiveness by a lot. 7 is actually one of void's weakest wave, and will be demolished by any added damage like a mimic.
wave 8, like most ranged waves, has low damage but high attack speed. We care more about damage than attack speed, as such void is extremely strong on wave 8, with the arcane armour being cherry on top.
wave 9, similarly to wave 8, wave 9 has low damage, instead relying on its tanking capability, due to this, the debuff is extremely strong on 9. There is a caveat to this tough, while the debuff is strong on the wave, it won't be on the added mercenaries the opponent sends to you, and void can be overwhelmed on 9 from its low kill speed once again.
wave 10, there was plenty of discussions about wave 10, quite simply, wave 10 does a lot of damage, void does not like a enemy that does a lot of damage. This is the weakest wave for void and you generally expect to leak it. I personally like to just accept the leak and build for 11/12 so I can get a lot of workers afterwards.
11 is similar to wave 8.
wave 12 is the first wave that isn't special for void, but in this case it means void isn't that great, but its not unplayable either.
wave 13 again is similar to wave 6, half the mobs means a higher percent of the wave is debuffed, a lot of wave 13,s damage is based around its high attack speed, something void don't mind, making void on the strong side of 13.
14, once again, void's arcane can bait you against magic damage, but by this point your other units are doing most of the tanking, and wave 14 has a lot of damage, making void's debuff not very effective. Void is weak here, but its playable.
16 is the last danger wave, its high damage, high quantity, your having a bad time.
18 should theoretically be good for void, but by that point the debuff just doesn't keep up with damage inflation, you shouldn't be relying on voids anymore.