Mine upgrades matter!

So you've probably seen how massive the rearm cost gets for mines at higher levels, and when lower levels have enough damage to instantly kill a gunner, and juggs set them off without taking any damage, why would you bother? Especially when you just use them as traps for juggs?

Well, with a bit of analysis, I'm going to tell you why lv5 mines are maybe worth it. Maybe its to make myself feel a bit better about my compulsive need to upgrade them, but bear with me. There is a use for the 750k I've been paying every time I want to rearm my base (and really, rearm cost doesn't matter at all once things are maxed, my gold is always at cap even though I spend 750k on a rearm every time I defend, and I just don't bother rearming while I'm upgrading things anyways, so why not?)

Mine lv4 does 400 damage, Mine lv5 does 650 damage. Both are more than enough to kill any non-tank troop with max TG, right?

WRONG.

Mines, when they work properly(and yes, they bug sometimes), are divided into two ranges. The inner range, really close to the mine (I believe about 1.5 tile range), is going to be vaporized no matter what - this is the range where they trigger the explosion. But something closer to the full 3-tile distance from the mine will only take 1/3 damage.

Those gunners nearby aren't going to set it off when they're 3 tiles away, they only set it off once they cross into that inner range where they would die. The juggs however, will run in and set the mine off, and those gunners that wouldn't have set it off are now going to be damaged. As a defender, this works greatly to your advantage, you can get a jugg to run ahead, set off the mine, and kill all the nearby troops that are just on the edge of the blast radius but too far to set it off.

But how much damage will they take, and what will it kill?

At mine lv4, at that range, they will take 133 damage (1/3 of 400, rounded down). Without a TG, this may kill an unmaxed gunner, a maxed gunner will survive with 3 hp (136 hp). With a TG, gunners are going to survive with yellow HP. You can confirm this when you watch replays - closeby gunners die, gunners further away survive with yellow HP.

At mine lv5, at that range, they take 216 damage (1/3 of 650, rounded down). This kills a gunner without TG, and brings a gunner with TG to red health. Again, you can confirm this in a replay, closeby gunners will die, and further away ones will survive with red HP. They will be finished off with two fewer cannon shots, or 6 fewer gun tower shots than if they were only lv4 mines.

Blackbeard adds between 26% and 40% to mine damage, which takes this further.

At 26% with Mine lv4, they will take 168 damage (1/3 of 504)
At 26% with Mine lv5, they will take 273 damage (1/3 of 819), way more than enough to kill off a gunner. Those fringe gunners are no longer going to survive with red hp, they are completely gone.

Lets look at 40% and see what other troops will get killed off that normally wouldn't.

40% with Mine 4 will be 210 damage (1/3 of 630), not enough to kill off a gunner with TG, despite your Blackbeard being maxed out!
40% with Mine 5 will be 303 damage (1/3 of 910). That's 93 extra damage over mine lv4, and its enough to completely kill off bombers as well. Melee troops are more likely going to be in the inner circle and die either way, but now those bombers aren't going to just barely survive and continue taking out a wall.


So it might not seem like much, and you may not be able to justify the rearm cost if you're still upgrading things and aren't willing to just leave them blown up until you're done, but those upgrades will make a difference at max level, when you're done upgrading everything else and need that extra edge to stop a talented attacker. You can still have them lure juggs into a walled off section, but nearby troops (bombers by the wall!) may sometimes take damage from that still, and when they do, you may be glad that mine stopped them faster.

 

...or you can just leave your mines at a weak level and smile when you have an total re-arm cost of about 100k.

I love your analysis as always @Skye but i think if you had not upgraded them by now, you would feel the same as me and not upgrade at all.
Yes I have full gold now so the temptation is there but as soon as I'm farming walls again I am happier to have a weaker lvl mine that I can still use to trap juggs but at a fraction of the re-arm cost. Having maxed mines and not being able to re-arm them makes no sense.

Also 750k re-arm when you're unlikely to ever make that back when people have something to spend gold on makes just as little sense to me. It's fine now but just wait until new walls come.

I'm gonna stay with my lvl 3 mines

 

I don't mind the cost. Even if they were only 10k each, I wouldn't rearm them while upgrading walls. Trapping juggs isn't critical to my design, and I use two mystic mines for that anyways.

750k isn't bad when you have nothing to spend gold on. Worst case, that takes sniping two 385k bases, but realistically it only takes one attack + the amount the gold mines regenerated. I had considered not upgrading them (I had one at lv1 for most of PH9), but I even upgraded that one because I don't like having things not maxed out

Many players may not be able to justify the cost, but there is enough of a benefit that for some players strategies, its worth at least considering. If you only plan on using them for juggs, it may not be worth it; although, those juggs getting trapped could still damage nearby bombers that are trying to break a nearby wall in the process, so the trap has a secondary purpose there anyways, and could still be useful to some strategies.

I'm not saying you definitely need to do it, its certainly not as important as upgrading your bunker from lv1 to lv3 or something, but it shouldn't be as completely written off and dismissed as it currently is. When every little bit of damage matters to save a star on your defense, it can help.

The more major purpose of the analysis was to teach about how bomb damage works

 

I think whichever side you are on, whether maxed traps are worth it or not, bu if there is content that a critical mass of players are avoiding because it is not worth it, then there is a design flaw. Their existence is not justified, and because of that they become dead content. Maxed gold or not, you shouldn't be paying more to rearm traps than the raider took. It just doesn't make sense to me or be worth sticking up for.


This with all due respect to you sky, but I just don't agree that the rearm prices are justified

 

Same thing happened with the new Legendary mines; level 2 are 75k to rearm for a 2-second stun, and level 3 are 150k, for a 3-second stun time. Not worth upgrading, IMO.
That said, I always cringe when I come across a level 5 mine while attacking, as my gunners turn into little skeletons...

 

I roughly follow the same principal as @Skye. Whenever I upgrade gold buildings or walls I do not re-arm any of the mines. Also I do keep 1-2 mines at lower level. Just for the fun of trapping at the entrance of my island, the price/catch ratio is 100% satisfying to me!

 

My intention with this was more to teach people about how mine damage is meant to work (1/3 damage at the outer range), and show how much it increases between levels, and that the extra damage does not get wasted. Some players may not be upgrading because they just don't understand when it would be beneficial to have 650 damage when they think 400 will kill a gunner, not knowing how much those gunners really take - the knowledge may give them some new defensive ideas, even if they don't choose to upgrade. Also, when you're attacking someone, you know better what to expect of your troops at various mine levels. Knowing when they lose how much health can help you plan an attack strategy differently.

I bit the bullet with lv3 LP traps as well. Definitely not as useful as normal mines, but 3 extra seconds of stun across all 3 is 210 extra damage a bunker can do to that LP, and yes the rearm could be lowered a lot. I suspect when we get the rest of the defensive upgrades, that extra second of stuntime will make even more of a difference. If we get a boost to a bunker, and throw in Ching's damage boost to them, I could see those 3 extra seconds of stun being enough to completely kill an LP with a single bunker before it can fire in some situations where it normally wouldn't. Sadie is devastating, and being able to counter where you know she can cripple your base from may be worth the cost for players that don't care about loot.

But high end mines aren't meant for protecting loot, they're meant for a slight advantage when you have nothing left to spend loot on, don't need it, and value saving off an extra star some of the time no matter the cost. They aren't useless, but they definitely are something only a "win at all costs, I don't need my loot at all" player will be willing to use. I'd love if the rearm cost came down, but even without it, I'm happy with them.

If you get 400k from a battle, and sit on your shield for two hours (the amount you get when you just barely win your defense), you should more or less be able to afford the rearm on an average defense. If they manage to set off all of the mines, you may need two battles to make up for it, or to sit on a shield longer - an attacker that sets off all my mines will likely shield me for 12 hours anyways, and that's enough to rearm them just off gold mines.

And you don't have to upgrade all of them to lv5. You could leave 4 of them at lv1 and use them to lure juggs in for cheap, and put two lv5 ones in strategic locations to wipe out gunners or really mess up Sadie. If you only have 2 of them to rearm, the cost is much more manageable for many players. The extra knowledge of when it might be useful may help encourage someone who may consider this approach to come up with a clever base.

This isn't meant to be a debate about rearm cost though, its meant to be an instructional about the outer-ranged damage differences at various mine levels. If you care about loot whatsoever, its not going to be worth it to upgrade all of them. I've sat at 10.5m gold since PH10 was released, and 9.6m gold for most of the last couple months before it was, despite spending that massive amount every single defense on rearming, so I don't mind paying extra, I'm going to make it back faster than I'm going to use it.