Tinkers, too effective in mid lane creeping?

[Keiser]

A trend has started to emerge from pretty much every game I play in mid with a tinker that also goes mid on my team. They end up getting the vast majority of last hits on creeps, thereby hoarding the gold. Consistently every time this happens both non-tinker in mid are starved for cash and fall way behind every other player, usually feeding. The tinker makes a run, gets an early sky tank and some good weapons, but he can't be everywhere and the weaker teammates can't hold the stronger opponents back.

As an example, one game after noticing I wasn't making enough to get, well, any weapons or hull I purposefully made pushes when my tinker was expanding to ensure his towers finished building. I decided to just support him all game and win that way. His response? He tried to vote kick me as I was 1-3 pushing back superior opponents and occasionally getting ganged. His vote kicks failed several times and I said "fine watch, I'll go sit at the control point and your towers will all die within 5 minutes." Sure enough, the enemy started pushing and took them out one by one. Someone mentioned how funny it would be if we kicked him instead, I started it, and he was unanimously removed from the game. Game ruined because us other 2 mid lane players were too weak, but boy everyone in the game enjoyed kicking him and we had a good laugh.

Honestly I'm not even sure of a way to solve the problem without completely removing the tinker, but it is a recurring situation that tends to be detrimental to the entire team. The only way I can think of to avoid this situation is to purposefully NOT let my own tinker get 5 towers set up in mid with weapons by retreating when he tries to build near the weapon shop. I don't like to play against the spirit of the game, however.

Any ideas?

[VuDu]

I don't think so ..just buy mortar teams and you'll see how easy can a tinker be destroyed ,, or even better -heavy tank

[Equiem]

I don't think so ..just buy mortar teams and you'll see how easy can a tinker be destroyed ,, or even better -heavy tank

He's talking about tinkers on his own team thou :wink:

@op: This is exactly what I've been thinking.

I dont mind tinkers on the other team since they usually just wait too long to switch to a tank a fall behind. Having a tinker or two on your team makes it impossible to farm at any decent rate in the middle if you dont do as you say and let their tower die. Usually you are left as the only real target and if you're in real luck the other team is stacking up on mines and long range which makes for some really frustrating creeping. Having to wait for the force money until you have enough for an early tank isn't all that fun and you will fall behind for the rest of the game.

The only solution I've come up with is going long range myself and trying to pick/train of the creeps before they get to the towers but that only leads to the tinker usually leaving because he doesnt get enough money. EIther that or he's the one falling behind enough to make him useless. Obviously there's the odd game where the tinker doesnt do his job correctly and you can farm or you were lucky and went for air tank giving you a bit easier creeping, but its still quite a problem.

Anyone else, how do you deal with it?

[Ger-Dyers-Eve]

Uh... how to tell what I want, without doing a cuss? I dont know. Learn to Play!

If you fall back in mid-lane, then just go on top or bot and push there. No one force you to play in mid, battle-tanks is a flexible game and if someone tells you "go out of my lane" then explain him the problem and tell him its a teamgame. Also, as every bodey in the league are thinking "one players in each outta-lane and 3 in midlane" you can use their psycholgy against them and make a rush if there are too much tinkers in mid-lane.

[eSVau]

Mortars and tinkers are gone

[Equiem]

Uh... how to tell what I want, without doing a cuss? I dont know. Learn to Play!

If you fall back in mid-lane, then just go on top or bot and push there. No one force you to play in mid, battle-tanks is a flexible game and if someone tells you "go out of my lane" then explain him the problem and tell him its a teamgame. Also, as every bodey in the league are thinking "one players in each outta-lane and 3 in midlane" you can use their psycholgy against them and make a rush if there are too much tinkers in mid-lane.

Not quite sure you actually read the whole post. He makes a very valid point and if you've been in the situation it should be quite clear.

Problem with going 2 on lane too early is 2 folded: Less creeps to share and if you manage to push for the cp too early you'll force mid field play which may or may not be a good thing. Afaik, the map is balanced around having 1+3+1 in each lane and the number of creeps /income is based on this.
Not really saying it shouldent be done but in my experience going 2 on lane is usually not a good idea early game and mid/late game people are all over anyways.

Mortars and tinkers are gone

On your own teams towers..?

[Althend]

Tinker is an annoyance. I understand your point. they tend to claim mid for themself. They don't ever come help when there is cp-attack. They tend to feed against demolisher. They whine when they "don't creep" enough. They think that 1500 hp is enough to resist a heavy tank. They just sit there and wait.

When I have one in my team, there is 2 solutions: helping or let him die until he leaves.... Helping is such a babysitting without any income since tinker is usually a noob player who may afford good item but can't use it properly (it is like spending your time healing feeders .p )

I guess the best thing you can do is to use your teckmech to help him a bit but really, tinker is a so selfish tank. Most tinker-player don't even think about put a module inside force tower T_T


May be the best tech is to flame the tinker until he get pissed off and doesn't ever play tinker again :p

[ArGoLi]

Wow i dont understand any problem of yours.
I played many battle tanks games but never had a problem that the tinker creeps all in middle.
I like it when his torpedo neary one hit creep and i can just get it with 1 shoot
well althend you are right tinkers are very often noobish selfish players^^

[jonjon]

A trend has started to emerge from pretty much every game I play in mid with a tinker that also goes mid on my team. They end up getting the vast majority of last hits on creeps, thereby hoarding the gold. Consistently every time this happens both non-tinker in mid are starved for cash and fall way behind every other player, usually feeding. The tinker makes a run, gets an early sky tank and some good weapons, but he can't be everywhere and the weaker teammates can't hold the stronger opponents back.

As an example, one game after noticing I wasn't making enough to get, well, any weapons or hull I purposefully made pushes when my tinker was expanding to ensure his towers finished building. I decided to just support him all game and win that way. His response? He tried to vote kick me as I was 1-3 pushing back superior opponents and occasionally getting ganged. His vote kicks failed several times and I said "fine watch, I'll go sit at the control point and your towers will all die within 5 minutes." Sure enough, the enemy started pushing and took them out one by one. Someone mentioned how funny it would be if we kicked him instead, I started it, and he was unanimously removed from the game. Game ruined because us other 2 mid lane players were too weak, but boy everyone in the game enjoyed kicking him and we had a good laugh.

Honestly I'm not even sure of a way to solve the problem without completely removing the tinker, but it is a recurring situation that tends to be detrimental to the entire team. The only way I can think of to avoid this situation is to purposefully NOT let my own tinker get 5 towers set up in mid with weapons by retreating when he tries to build near the weapon shop. I don't like to play against the spirit of the game, however.

Any ideas?

They're ok. I wouldn't go as far as them being too effective. They're often behind in the weapons/tank race.
You just can't count on them pushing and they whine when you don't protect their towers.
I don't really experience such a problem as our games are in-house. Everybody knows not to tinker. TInker is often associated with low stats > low kills and low deaths. Very bad for their ladder stats.

Uh... how to tell what I want, without doing a cuss? I dont know. Learn to Play!

If you fall back in mid-lane, then just go on top or bot and push there. No one force you to play in mid, battle-tanks is a flexible game and if someone tells you "go out of my lane" then explain him the problem and tell him its a teamgame. Also, as every bodey in the league are thinking "one players in each outta-lane and 3 in midlane" you can use their psycholgy against them and make a rush if there are too much tinkers in mid-lane.

If a tinker told me to do that, I'd just allow the opposing team kill his towers while he cries for team work. It's contradictory for a tinker to hog a lane and then ask for you to protect his towers.

[Keiser]

Well good to see it hasn't been an isolated incident and others share my view.

Yes I agree that tinkers are usually more noob-ish players, but I never play private games just the League pub games so I can't avoid them that way.

...
I just played a game in qualify and surprise I have 3 tinkers in the game, 2 on my team, one followed me to a side lane. :\ Was pretty funny when I left for mid and about 1 minute later "help top!" Such a waste of space.

And it's not so much that they're too effective overall, just at creeping. They eat up all the gold and then waste it when just about any other player could put it to better use long term.

[Battlemaniac]

i don't mind tinkers in my team, i've found a handful of guys that plays really good as a tinker.

there was once an outnumbered game, and both of them started as i thinker, and i though to my self... "fcuk this is game over" in my head, but none the less i played as i normally do, and to my surprised wow! they kicked ass as they worked well together, and the only time they needed help was right at the start, i make sure their first tower were build and i went on my own way.

ironically the one that died the most at the start, got the most kill at the end of the game, he was saving for something big... bad thing is he didn't speak much and we had no damn clue what was his plan until when we saw what he bough like 15min into the game and dying a shit load, so we just had to cover each other just in case, it paid off at the end.

on other occasions, when you have to babysit your regular tinker wanna be, i'll just use their tower as a shield and stay ahead of their 1300 range weapons so i can farm meanwhile being covered by their fire power, that usually works well until people starts to buy mortar teams, but usually by then you've farmed enough to have good weapons and most likely already conquered the enemy center CP

[Jayzer]

I think the reason why tinkers have early game advantage more than anything is because their starting towers have 4500 hp, and unlike the scout's tower, will regenerate 100% of its HP as it builds. I think a lot of us try to take out early tink towers as they start building but in the first 5 minutes each tank only does like 200 dps so you can rarely take out a building tower because it regens so fast.

I think a good balance idea would be that if a tink tower takes damage as it is building, that it finishes building with less HP instead of at full HP. That way towers could not push foward as easily early game and would keep tink players from playing so offensively in mid to rob the creep kills. They would HAVE to play a defensive role.

This would also encourage more tink players to choose the 'repair' skill, the least popular of tink abilities imo, and also force the tinkers to actually stay close to the fighting to repair their towers

[mooneye]

tinker sucks, they are selfish and never help protect side CPs. I lost almost all games with tinker allies.

[ArGoLi]

wow than you arent very good player^^
i like the idea with the hp of thw towers when finished.
youre right not many tinkers are using repair so it would be really better or more important.

[mooneye]

Did anyone win a game with tinkers?
I had never won a game with tinker allies.

[AGGInator]

Did anyone win a game with tinkers?
I had never won a game with tinker allies.

won yes.. but not with their help..
the most get hr weapons and play tinker too long.. saving for a good tank like hunter or sky tank --> and these arent good with torps :mrgreen:
thats why the most suck.

in my opinion the only tinker who may help is this one who buy elec cannon and get airship soon (and he/she should handle it too^^)
or that one who decides to go support (facs, ups, defense repair aso)

[k-bones]

Uh... how to tell what I want, without doing a cuss? I dont know. Learn to Play!

If you fall back in mid-lane, then just go on top or bot and push there. No one force you to play in mid, battle-tanks is a flexible game and if someone tells you "go out of my lane" then explain him the problem and tell him its a teamgame. Also, as every bodey in the league are thinking "one players in each outta-lane and 3 in midlane" you can use their psycholgy against them and make a rush if there are too much tinkers in mid-lane.

oh man.
if one can't creep in middle, how exactly sharing creeps on a sidelane could help?

after reading the forums for a while I think you consider the game perfect and nothing needs changing, therefore everyone who disagrees is a noob. at the same time you seem to never have been in most of the situations you discuss.

[benben10]

just finished a game where exactly that happend. thankfully the tinker went hunter at 25 mins and had decent weapons to put in it and was also a decent player. the best thing i can think of is to buy a start tank that you can go 1 hour with. medivac and antigravity tank are i think the 2 best because their best skills do not involve specific damage amount. medivac has speed boost and immunity to weapons that just gets better as game goes longer and antigrav tank has AoE Stun and jump and dimension shift is always good to trap someone. we ended up leaving tinker solo on our team while we pushed lanes. we won the game because the tinker went hunter and helped push and grab bases. i got some lucky kills while capping CPs and became a good threat and kill running tanks.

[Althend]

Personnaly I would like tinker removed from league :o

[lyf590]

Tinker+2k laser tower near trade master=almost half of the creeep money gone to tinker