Kingdom Rush rebalance post

Grab a beer or something, this is going to take plenty of reading.

*[b]Barbarian ATK 16-24 -> 20-30[/b] - I find that Barbarians rely too much on abilities to do anything worthwhile, though I will admit that Throwing Axes is still handy when it comes out naturally by letting Barbarians act as a pseudo-Musketeer, but Throwing Axes has nothing to do with base damage. Since I'm under the assumption that Barbarians attack every 72 frames, which means 15 attacks every 6 seconds, 20 average damage per attack amounts to 50 DPS. Doesn't seem too bad, since it approaches the Arcane Wizard's 108 * 60/120 = 54 and can be spread between multiple enemies, while if there's only one baddie to even attack, that baddie will take full damage. So where do I take issue? They're still soldiers, that's where. Even though the attacked enemy stops moving, the Barbarians can still die and don't even have armor to hinder that possibility, though they do have more HP than Paladins. As soon as they die, and they will if they suffer any halfway-prolonged abuse (yeah, how many enemies even have less than 10 ATK MINIMUM), they stay dead for 10 seconds where they deal *NO* damage. This can be particularly critical if the enemy has decent mobility, because if they do, they'll likely move past where the Barbarians can rally before the Barbarians can revive.
Now I understand that Barbarians should be maneuvered to fight small enemies instead of trying to do anything to the bigger ones to make it less relevant that Paladins have better net power. However, this brings up another reason to tone up the ATK: the increased micromanagement expectation means that Barbarians are ultimately risk-reward units. The reward is just plain lackluster. I can get only slightly weaker results from Paladins, who to cover for the fact that this is a TD game provide defensive power that lets me buy other towers for keeping the enemy count low and wrecking the durable enemies they're hired to stagger. I understand that the Mead Hall is only 570G, low end cost for a Level 4 tower, so they shouldn't be too effective, but it's still a Level 4 tower. It's still a keystone defense if brought out prior to lategame, and if that happens, the micromanagement aspect makes it a pain to focus on upgrading other towers as need be. So Barbarians should be able to reward players who get their microing going.
Now upping the BD would increase the power of More Axes, but I'm accounting for that too. 20-30 -> 30-40 is still significant enough to warrant the 300G cost, especially considering:
-Giant Spiders are only 2HKed with extreme luck at 20-30, but 30-40 would make this an ensured 2HK
-Wulves are potentially 1HKed with 30-40 compared to 26-34
-Worgs and Skeletons no longer survive 4 hits with 30-40 compared to 26-34
And 30-40 -> 40-50 doesn't have any worthwhile magic numbers to work with. Yeah.

*[b]Sorcerer Mage ATK 42-78 -> 31-57[/b] - you might be wondering why a nerf that severe. Before I start going into direct detail, I need to point this out: defensive power should be good enough to set the bar for creativity, because it prevents mindless things from causing too many problems. This is why Rocket Riders are my favorite enemy: they want you to use things like Musketeers who can actually nail them from afar at the last second to prevent their escape. This is not to say that it should be mindless under a given human player's control--far from it--but a game is much more plausible to balance when something checks the obvious spammable solutions. The contrast to this is Super Smash Bros., which has unconditional flinching for starters punishing you for ever getting hit even when you are playing a character who by all accounts should be okay with it, and by total coincidence, Meta Knight, who is inherently a Wake Up Call Character and a [url=http://tropes.wikia.com/wiki/Glass_Cannon]Glass Cannon[/url]/[url=http://tropes.wikia.com/wiki/Fragile_Speedster]Fragile Speedster[/url]/[urlhttp://tropes.wikia.com/wiki/Melee_Tornado]Melee Tornado[/url] hybrid, is decried as broken, sadly not without reason. Kid Icarus Uprising, while it did provide the power system, also messed up the speed checks in one way or another and simultaneously provided Energy Charge, which ultimately boils down to free attack power [i]just for having the hit/evasion advantage[/i]. Compared to Kingdom Rush, which has the sense to have armor ignoring from cannons be partial AND keep it from dealing too much damage for cost anyway, and note that cannons are lucky compared to the things that outright deal True Damage.
So what's the deal with the Sorcerer Mage in the middle of this? Well, whenever it attacks, it deals a curse to the targeted enemy that provides an additional 10 damage per second and reduces their armor rating. This statusing results in the Sorcerer Mage retargeting if multiple enemies are in range, the obvious weakness, but it works as a strength because the Sorcerer also wrecks the supporting enemies, which are generally Shadow Archers for the armor baddies, so something ike a Dark Slayer becomes easier to isolate. The Sorcerer Mage is what is worth calling a dedicated anti-armor tower. Dedicated anti-armor magic is not a bad thing, because it prevents an opponent from wanting to care exclusively about defensive power or it becomes a mindless broken advantage. The nerf's necessity stems from the fact that the anti-armor itself needs to be checked too. If it isn't, then any creativity birthed by defensive power setting the bar becomes meaningless.
Now 42-78 seems to be keeping this under control already, until you realize that the Sorcerer Mage still attacks faster than the Arcane Wizard, at a rate of 80 frames compared to the Arcane Wizard's 120, so the Sorcerer Mage's DPS is 45...BEFORE the Curse damage. Add that and the Sorcerer Mage's DPS is now 55, edging out the Arcane Wizard's 54, if barely. This is a big deal because the Sorcerer Mage also hits more baddies (for average 400 spread between 4 enemies every ~6 seconds at that, and Curse can even chip KO anything low on HP), whereas the Arcane Wizard desperately needs Teleport for anything resembling crowd control, and the Sorcerer Mage even lets the likes of Rangers actually deal damage to guys they otherwise wouldn't dent. Threats are easily reduced to highly durable baddies such as Yetis and Magma Elementals, and the Sorcerer Mage has the Golem for THEM.
Ability synergy isn't a bad thing, especially since we're talking about a MAGE in this case, but needs to be looked at carefully. The result is that the attack nerf isn't the only suggestion at all for the Sorcerer Mage.

*[b]Sorcerer Mage Golem - ATK 10L + (40-80) -> 10L + (10-30), Respawn Time 8s -> 16s[/b] - the Golem is capable of REALLY supporting the Sorcerer Mage. Even though it's expensive, 350G is still less than the 390G needed for a L2 -> L4 transition for Barracks. The Golem can stump only one enemy, but it has 3 times the durability of a given Paladin with the same amount of armor, and isn't even gimped by area attacks like Paladins are. The Sorcerer Mage simultaneously has an area attack for wrecking crowds. Having 50-90 BD makes it arguably better than Barbarians even before the area damage, and it has the benefit of having support from a mage who consistently reduces the armor that can conceivably cut off some of that damage.
Reducing the Golem's damage considerably would make it more useful to have Barbarians, as Barbarians would be able to deal more damage and stagger more enemies. The Golem would still be good for surviving abuse very easily, but groups would have an easier time getting past. Barbarians could even potentially see a use: chopping apart cursed Brigands and Dark Knights, who rely on Armor ratings to cover for mediocre HP values.
The increase in the Golem's respawn time is because without it, good Golem usage is painfully automatic. Paladins are checked by their own respawn time. It's only fair that the Golem has equivalent problems. If its regen rate has to be toned up, that's fine, as long as the Golem actually gets a microing expectation.

*[b]Sorcerer Mage Polymorph cost 150+150L -> 200+150L[/b] - it's easy to argue that Polymorph isn't as good as Death Ray, because the sheep isn't instantly dead, it still costs the same amount of lives if it gets through, and it can't even be blocked, and killing it by clicking to save attacks denies you the enemy's bounty. While Polymorph isn't QUITE as strong, I don't see any of that justifying a considerably lower cost.
First is the fact that you still expend attacks to hit the sheep. Thing is, the sheep is still a gimped target. It no longer could have armor to protect it. And I swear, Polymorph halves the HP of Yetis and Magma Elementals, who would otherwise be punishing this via their high HP and lack of defense. Those guys are simply not going anywhere except being isolated easily. And the blocking inability means that Polymorph backfires outright on an end of path Sorcerer Mage, but Death Ray itself is already trash on an end of path Arcane Wizard because whatever gets hit likely is too weak to survive much to begin with. The blocking guy still gets a new target to attack, and fewer baddies to worry about, which in turn leads to the Polymorph victim being isolated where his HPs will get eaten through fast.
At least it's still weaker than DR, but it's still on a synergetic tower.

*[b]Demon explosion damage (current) -> ~2/3 (current) BUT half-ignore armor[/b] - I'm still not sure on the exact values of Demon explosions, though I'm pretty sure that Demon Spawns' explosions at least deal 50-100 fully affected by armor. What I am noticing, though, is that the explosions make Barbarians die too quickly on the last few levels because of all the Demon enemies. Attack power becomes a liability on soldiers because killing the demon is what triggers the explosion. That's a good game design concept, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be reviewed. Attack power is easily mindless unless well checked, but if it's punished too severely, you have no reason to get more and defense power becomes the dominant choice. In this case, Paladins are completely preferable to Barbarians since they actually survive a few explosions and consequently can stagger the stragglers.
What was done with cannons to make HP a potential balancing stat can be done to make Demon Spawns less obnoxious against Barbarians wanting More Axes. Sure Barbarians still will require microing, but they will actually be able survive an additional explosion or two now, allowing for more damage or simply getting away to nurse their wounds. There is a bothersome side-effect to this idea, though, namely that non-L4 towers also get better durability, but remember that even capped defenses Paladins can't survive too many Demons getting through. Just to make sure though, let's take a gander at the math assuming 50-100 -> 35-65 half-ignore:
*Militia: 50-100 -> 35-65 (1HK is not guaranteed, but can still happen, and these guys die quickly anyway)
*Footmen: 45-90 -> 33-61 (2HK is less likely, almost 1HK is no longer possible, but these guys' durability is still questionable)
*Knights: 35-70 -> 29-55 (increased number of explosions for KO, but only 1 tops)
*Paladins: 25-50 -> 26-48 (less luck involved)
*Shield of Valor Paladins: 20-40 -> 24-45 (nerf, but not considerable)
*Barbarians: 50-100 -> 35-65 (3HK-5HK (moderate luck 4HK) -> 4HK-7HK (moderate luck 5HK))
As long as Barbarians don't need Hand Axes so much to be playable on the final levels, I'd feel better. And by the way, I like the half-ignore armor concept.

*[b]Skeleton Knight speed (current) -> 5/6 * (current)[/b] -