Maxwell the symptom of a problem

[Trevindo]

First I would like to congratulate the developers, the rework was really good, in my opinion it would be more perfect if the leftovers sent the collected items to Maxwell's interdimensional inventory and of course an adjustment in the warrior leftovers that are stolen and that's something I'm going to work on course of the text.

Don't worry, this text is not about making maxwell a useless character, but about how the other characters in the game's cast can be useless when compared to the reworks.

When I saw Maxwell's rework I was very happy, at the same time I thought: "Wow, he does everything Wurt does, only better!", but why did that come to my mind?

Combat:

Maxwell's leftovers are currently able to kill all stationmasters, without directly participating in the confrontation. In addition, they can easily kill bosses such as Malbatross, Crab King and Dragonfly.
Wurt can also kill these bosses with Merm Guards (But sea bosses are better not since merm can't float on water, just like Maxwell's leftovers), but we can agree that Wurt's level of preparation to make his army is incredibly laborious compared to Maxwell? In addition, the shadow DPS is higher since they removed the shadow recoil mechanic, in addition to being able to take your army to the caves.

Resource farms:

I don't think I have to compare the price for creating merm with the price for making shadows, right? Even because the shadows can remove tree stumps, catch grass, sticks and algae, in addition to putting things in Maxwell's inventory.

Thinking about what Wurt has and Maxwell doesn't:

I can think of the merm king, but let's agree that 10 pigskins + 15 beefalos fur + 20 seaweed, to get seeds, toys and seaweed is not that great. You can say you get gold too, but that was just a way of making up for the wurt not being able to trade with the pig king. So what are the advantages of playing Wurt when you can play Maxwell? None, unless you really love playing Wurt a lot.

I used Wurt as an example, but we could bring other characters here like Wormwood or Willow, who are really pressing for more affection.

[Copyafriend]

24 minutes ago, Trevindo said:

but why did that come to my mind

Because klei has a serious problem with power creep. 
 

like i wasnt even thinking of merms, but yeah, maxwell can outdo merms relatively cheaply now too. 
 

he couldnt before, aside from digging stumps, it was a stomp by wurt, which it should be because of a  “investment = payoff” mentality. But maxwell can chop dig and pickaxe insanely well now, for very cheap. The main downside of maxwell currently is upkeep costs, needing to resummon every time but honestly they’re pretty low. 
or rather REALLY low. 
 

like dang these minions are practically free compared to making or relocating houses, and does the job better and helps me gather everything up and dig the stumps up too. 
 

costs me one and a half nightmare fuel to have a forest cut down dug up and gathered up by a team of 6 players effectively. 
 

plus they can pick my sticks and grass for me
 

its sick asf.

 

But now that i think about it, he blows wurt (who is his direct rival sharing his sphere of influence being minions and gathering) out of the water with NO preparation. His minions are stronger combat wise now too. 
 

klei is steadily making characters MUCH stronger. Which isnt a good thing. Because wurt would either need to be buffed to match, or alternatively be left to just be a worse version of maxwell. 
 

i am honestly scared for the future of dont starve. And i hope klei slows the buff train down before it derails

[Vasz_]

41 minutes ago, Trevindo said:

So what are the advantages of playing Wurt when you can play Maxwell?

The biggest advantages of playing Wurt for me are immunity to seasons, scalable army of fighters/workers, and marsh speed boost. You can have a mini army with Maxwell, but it's not quite the same, I don't think you can post a video like that Deerclops one, but against Bee Queen instead. I'm not saying the duelists are worse, just different. The Malbatross fight for example should be much easier for Maxwell, and the servants are much better than merms for sailing.

They're different characters and one isn't intrinsically better than the other just because they share some similarities. I don't have an opinion on whether the duelists are too strong or not, I'm just defending Wurt.

[Trevindo]

23 minutes ago, Vasz_ said:

The biggest advantages of playing Wurt for me are immunity to seasons, scalable army of fighters/workers, and marsh speed boost. You can have a mini army with Maxwell, but it's not quite the same, I don't think you can post a video like that Deerclops one, but against Bee Queen instead. I'm not saying the duelists are worse, just different. The Malbatross fight for example should be much easier for Maxwell, and the servants are much better than merms for sailing.

They're different characters and one isn't intrinsically better than the other just because they share some similarities. I don't have an opinion on whether the duelists are too strong or not, I'm just defending Wurt.

Alright, I'm a Wurt lover, so I'll try to work on these points you put up:

"Immunity to seasons": This is a nice thing, but it only works if you catch the seasonal fish, that is, you won't be immune until the first summer in the game, because the spring rain still makes Wurt cold. And also nothing prevents other players from using the fish too, along with the thermal backpack, it's not the same thing, but that's not exclusive to Wurt, even because Wx-78 is immune in the first winter.

 "scalable army of fighters/workers": This point my colleague worked on in the text above, shadows beat merm in gathering and in battle a late game Maxwell can regenerate leftovers faster than merm guards take time to spawn( 4 minutes each, in winter it takes 2 days). Leftovers also win in terms of versatility as Maxwell only has to have the book to use them anywhere.

"merm vs. Bee quen": To be honest, I don't doubt Maxwell can do the same to her, as long as he has enough nightmare fuel. In terms of merms, you must have at least 15 merm Guards, 2 beekeeper hats and a weapon to complete the rest of the damage, this level of preparation you get on average with 30 days (of course if you are experienced), meanwhile Wolfgang manages to kill her with 8 days of play (There is a Youtube tutorial).

Can you understand how uneven this is? Maxwell can summon very good units to do the same as merm and are much cheaper. I know there are a lot of people who love characters like Wurt around here, it's just that Wurt is one of the least played characters in the WORLD.

[Vasz_]

2 hours ago, Trevindo said:

"Immunity to seasons": This is a nice thing, but it only works if you catch the seasonal fish, that is, you won't be immune until the first summer in the game, because the spring rain still makes Wurt cold.

That is true, but it's not a counter argument to my point. Immunity to seasons is indisputably a Wurt advantage over Maxwell, and that is part of my answer to the question I quoted. I don't think the fact that other characters can use the fish as well is a strong argument, because the ability to achieve seasonal immunity is not what's being discussed in this case, it's how you achieve it. Technically every character can be immune to seasons with clothing and a thermal stone, so I'll explain it better: Wurt has alternative and unique mechanics to negate the effects of seasons that Maxwell doesn't have.

2 hours ago, Trevindo said:

And also nothing prevents other players from using the fish too, along with the thermal backpack, it's not the same thing, but that's not exclusive to Wurt, even because Wx-78 is immune in the first winter.

People generally don't use the seasonal fish the same way as Wurt does despite technically being able to, and that's because Wurt has an advantage. You can say WX-78 has a similar advantage, but it's still an advantage that Wurt has over Maxwell.

2 hours ago, Trevindo said:

shadows beat merm in gathering and in battle a late game Maxwell can regenerate leftovers faster than merm guards take time to spawn( 4 minutes each, in winter it takes 2 days). Leftovers also win in terms of versatility as Maxwell only has to have the book to use them anywhere.

About fighting: An infinitely large army is not the same as an infinitely renewable one. A merm army is very resource intensive and I won't dispute the fact Maxwell has his army immediately, while Wurt has to work for it, but the difference is that Maxwell can't make his army stronger, they're always capped and will always take a similar amount of effort to kill something. You may not think that's important, but as someone that plays for multiple in-game years, I value how fast I can kill something I already killed a bunch of times more than I value how early I can kill it. I don't think the time it takes for Merms to respawn is very relavant since I'm arguing renewability vs. strength, I won't dispute that duelists are better in that regard, but preferably you always take with you an army of merms that can easily get the job done. Basically, the peak merm army is stronger than the peak Maxwell army, and that's the advantage; granted most people wouldn't consider this an advantage, but I hope you can understand why I personally think it is. Merm guards always take 4 minutes to respawn btw.

About gathering: Shadows do beat merms at gathering resources, especially now that they pick up everything. It's kinda crazy.

2 hours ago, Trevindo said:

"merm vs. Bee quen": To be honest, I don't doubt Maxwell can do the same to her, as long as he has enough nightmare fuel. In terms of merms, you must have at least 15 merm Guards, 2 beekeeper hats and a weapon to complete the rest of the damage, this level of preparation you get on average with 30 days (of course if you are experienced), meanwhile Wolfgang manages to kill her with 8 days of play (There is a Youtube tutorial).

I don't think Maxwell can kill Bee Queen as easily as Wurt, but feel free to prove me wrong. He can certainly kill her way earlier and for way less resources though.

Conclusion: I think it's easy to dismiss Wurt's advantages because she's a late game character and others can get things done much earlier, but that doesn't mean those characters are intrinsically better or worse, especially because characters have a combination of abilities and we need to look at them holistically. There are advantages to playing Wurt over Maxwell, despite them having similar characteristics; you can argue that these advantages are not enough, but I would disagree for the reasons I pointed out. I do agree that there are less advantages to playing Wurt over Maxwell after the refresh though.

[Trevindo]

56 minutes ago, Vasz_ said:

That is true, but it's not a counter argument to my point. Immunity to seasons is indisputably a Wurt advantage over Maxwell, and that is part of my answer to the question I quoted. I don't think the fact that other characters can use the fish as well is a strong argument, because the ability to achieve seasonal immunity is not what's being discussed in this case, it's how you achieve it. Technically every character can be immune to seasons with clothing and a thermal stone, so I'll explain it better: Wurt has alternative and unique mechanics to negate the effects of seasons that Maxwell doesn't have.

People generally don't use the seasonal fish the same way as Wurt does despite technically being able to, and that's because Wurt has an advantage. You can say WX-78 has a similar advantage, but it's still an advantage that Wurt has over Maxwell.

About fighting: An infinitely large army is not the same as an infinitely renewable one. A merm army is very resource intensive and I won't dispute the fact Maxwell has his army immediately, while Wurt has to work for it, but the difference is that Maxwell can't make his army stronger, they're always capped and will always take a similar amount of effort to kill something. You may not think that's important, but as someone that plays for multiple in-game years, I value how fast I can kill something I already killed a bunch of times more than I value how early I can kill it. I don't think the time it takes for Merms to respawn is very relavant since I'm arguing renewability vs. strength, I won't dispute that duelists are better in that regard, but preferably you always take with you an army of merms that can easily get the job done. Basically, the peak merm army is stronger than the peak Maxwell army, and that's the advantage; granted most people wouldn't consider this an advantage, but I hope you can understand why I personally think it is. Merm guards always take 4 minutes to respawn btw.

About gathering: Shadows do beat merms at gathering resources, especially now that they pick up everything. It's kinda crazy.

I don't think Maxwell can kill Bee Queen as easily as Wurt, but feel free to prove me wrong. He can certainly kill her way earlier and for way less resources though.

Conclusion: I think it's easy to dismiss Wurt's advantages because she's a late game character and others can get things done much earlier, but that doesn't mean those characters are intrinsically better or worse, especially because characters have a combination of abilities and we need to look at them holistically. There are advantages to playing Wurt over Maxwell, despite them having similar characteristics; you can argue that these advantages are not enough, but I would disagree for the reasons I pointed out. I do agree that there are less advantages to playing Wurt over Maxwell after the refresh though.

Man, you claiming that Wurt has an advantage over Maxwell for being able to protect himself from the seasons in "different" ways is not even a reason for someone to choose Wurt over Maxwell, who alias has no problem passing the seasons with thermal stone or outerwear. Maxwell has unique mechanics unique to him, which Wurt doesn't have because the merm king is a pig king that is more work to make and maintain.

Wurt's strengths have always been his ability to generate resources and his battle around units, both niches that Maxwell does better than Wurt. You asked me if Maxwell kills the queen bee:

You claimed about Wurt being able to strengthen his army by increasing unit amounts, but this is often a problem on multiplay servers and using this as a basis for measuring an army's damage potential is ******** as I proved mathematically in this file where I did it. the deduction of the theoretical damage potential value of an army(I hope you know Portuguese):

 

DST.docx

[abrocator]

Late game:

Merm benefits: free, as in costs vegetables (stone fruit)

Shadow shenanigans benefits: forever and ever costs nightmare fuel (edit: apparently not if he has a bookshelf!)

Maxwell benefits over Maxwell (all game): omnivore, tolerated by pigs

Wurt benefits over Maxwell (all game): seasons (wetness/seasonal fish), frog friendly (for frog rain), having more health than a soaked napkin, can read books for leisure and not just for Satanic purposes

Wurt is still queen.

[Copyafriend]

13 minutes ago, abrocator said:

Late game:

Merm benefits: free, as in costs vegetables (stone fruit)

Shadow shenanigans benefits: forever and ever costs nightmare fuel

Maxwell benefits over Maxwell (all game): omnivore, tolerated by pigs

Wurt benefits over Maxwell (all game): seasons (wetness/seasonal fish), frog friendly (for frog rain), having more health than a soaked napkin, can read books for leisure and not just for Satanic purposes

Wurt is still queen.

Nightmare fuel isnt inherently more difficult to obtain than vegetables, it just requires a different farm. and there are LOTS of nightmare fuel farms, I'll link one if you want.

wurt has ZERO. count them ZERO seasonal benefits outside of a good grip and frog rain. The fish thing is equally achievable at almost the same efficiency with a insulated pack. people just dont because its more a meme than actually effective. wurt just needs fish constantly anyway for her sanity regen. Maxwell would still have more storage than wurt with a krampus too. A thermal stone heated to 90* will take a whopping 5 x 70 = 350 seconds or practically six minutes to reach REGULAR temperatures. you have a full day to burn... a tree down. Compared to storing a fish at base again every four days. Nice job staying tied to base.

Shadow shenanigans also has 2 POWERFUL spells that are practically free. Trapping enemies is NO laughing matter, nor is a fear effect. Also you ALWAYS have your summons ready, with no upkeep until actively using them, A shadow is also a good bit stronger than a warrior merm against stronger enemies, bearger will 3 shot warrior merms, it still takes 5 to kill a duelist.

 

This isnt a point of pride for me. I genuinely believe wurt has become comparatively weaker than maxwell. eventually having 30 merms isnt a solution either because anything you could need 30 merms for can be solved with 30 bunnymen.

[abrocator]

29 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Nightmare fuel isnt inherently more difficult to obtain than vegetables, it just requires a different farm. and there are LOTS of nightmare fuel farms, I'll link one if you want.

I’ll take your word for it.

29 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

wurt has ZERO. count them ZERO seasonal benefits outside of a good grip and frog rain.

With one fish that she needs to switch out every other (or four?) days or so she needs no seasonal clothing. Just one inventory spot. Compare with thermal stone which needs to be reheated or recooled (or swapped out) much more frequently.

Compare with Maxwell who has 75 health and in turn might want to use both some armor and some clothing for insulation.

29 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

The fish thing is equally achievable at almost the same efficiency with a insulated pack. people just dont because its more a meme than actually effective.

On one hand you say that it is “almost as efficient”. (No: half as efficient if you are fine with foregoing a piggyback or krampus sack in favor of the insulated pack.) On the other hand you say that it is a “meme”? Okay, but these two things are connected: in normal-speak it is impractical (a meme) because the fishies die too fast. But for Wurt they just don’t. You don’t need to be constantly thinking about it. In fact it is more convenient than using thermal stones when you have multiple tin fishin’ bins around the world for you to swap fishies out a few times a season... Up until that point though it might not be worth it (keeping in line with her ridiculously laaaate-game style).

29 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Nice job staying tied to base.

False.

29 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

Trapping enemies is NO laughing matter, nor is a fear effect.

I will have to see more of the use of these spells.

29 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

A shadow is also a good bit stronger than a warrior merm against stronger enemies, bearger will 3 shot warrior merms,

With the exception of Klaus (maybe shadows are great at killing him; merms of course stupidly kill the deers) I think merms are good enough at killing the bosses that I want to kill regularly. For the more exceptional/one-off bosses Maxwell might be superior (and apparently he is on par with Wurt with regards to the farmable bosses—no complaints from me). Wurt is definitely more of the everyday boss farmer kind of fighter, I mean AFKer with minions. (Killing Crab King as Wurt would suck as much as, hmm, probably killing him with Wilson.)

15 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Things are as they should be.

[throws Wickerbottom and Wolfgang in the trash]

That’s illegal.

30 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

wurt just needs fish constantly anyway for her sanity regen.

She doesn’t need sanity regen any more than the default character needs it...

[Copyafriend]

9 minutes ago, Gi-Go said:

Things are as they should be. 

**** thats a good meme though

3 minutes ago, abrocator said:

On one hand you say that it is “almost as efficient”. (No: half as efficient if you are fine with foregoing a piggyback or krampus sack in favor of the insulated pack.) On the other hand you say that it is a “meme”? Okay, but these two things are connected: in normal-speak it is impractical (a meme) because the fishies die too fast. But for Wurt they just don’t. You don’t need to be constantly thinking about it. In fact it is more convenient than using thermal stones when you have multiple tin fishin’ bins around the world for you to swap fishies out a few times a season... Up until that point though it might not be worth it (keeping in line with her ridiculously laaaate-game style).

as mentioned- foregoing it would still leave maxwell at an advantage thanks to his 12 slot shadow storage. secondly, you have seemingly, but not actually caught me contradicting myself. I say its "Almost as efficient" because its once every two days, which IS admittedly twice as often, but much less than doing it without it, and plenty to be theoretically useful for temperature management. But my real point was that it ISNT worth it even if it had its full 4 day timer, because its more a meme that people throw around about wurt than something every wurt is just jumping around in excitement about. Its GOOD don't get me wrong. WHEN YOU DO HAVE THE INFRASTRUCTURE, it works. its totally a replacement for thermal stones. But also, the infrastructure just isnt worth setting up, itd take me until year 2 to do it if I really wanted to, and at that point I could also just have thermal stones laying next to a scaled furnace ON land ON my regularly travelled paths. I mean the fish are cool but even on my 4 year wurt playthrough, I never really used them even when I had like 4 sun fish.

and its only the sunfish that are really useful. Considering we're discussing long term tactics, ice chester is a permanent "tin fishing bin" effect for your summer thermal stones, and honestly the REAL long term temperature management secret is to wear a beefalo hat and pass by permanent sources of heat as you travel and never get cold at all. wearing a helmet all the time is for people who get hit, or rather people who cant remember to just switch to their crown when the fight starts.

 

My point is, people bring up the temperature management fish like they're some special thing wurt has, and it really just isnt all that good.

[Gashzer]

34 minutes ago, Copyafriend said:

My point is, people bring up the temperature management fish like they're some special thing wurt has, and it really just isnt all that good.

Spoken as someone who definitely hasn't used seasonal fish as wurt..... they are awesome.

You can bundle fish and swap out a nearly spoiled one for a fresh fish so you can be away from base for a whole season without ever having to heat up or cool down.... wurt is the only character that can comfortably explore the cave/clear the ruins/fight ancient fuelweaver during winter with absolutely no downside.... cave rain no problem... freezing no problem.... sanity no problem...

The new maxwells minions are insanely good tho but wurt can give her merms to other players while maxwell cannot. So in a team situation maxwell has to be the one collecting resources.... maybe i dont want to be shoehorned into bein the team resource dude?.... atleast wurt can give her resource chopping and mining power to other players if she doesnt want to do it herself.

Im loving the new maxwell tho, a small tweak to the duelists and servants to not be as infinitely spammable is all thats needed in my opinion... maybe make the duelists cost 5hp per summon... that way atleast u need healing to spam them forever. Servants maybe cost 5 hunger per summon?

 

[z3rox12]

All they need is limit the amount of slaves to like 4 max and summoning each has an actual sanity cost along with the max sanity reduction.

[Evelo]

I thought Codex wasn't allowed to be inside a bookshelf? Why was it changed?

[Vasz_]

2 hours ago, Trevindo said:

Man, you claiming that Wurt has an advantage over Maxwell for being able to protect himself from the seasons in "different" ways is not even a reason for someone to choose Wurt over Maxwell, who alias has no problem passing the seasons with thermal stone or outerwear. Maxwell has unique mechanics unique to him, which Wurt doesn't have because the merm king is a pig king that is more work to make and maintain.

I'm sorry, but the the season immunity is absolutely a reason to pick Wurt over Maxwell, you don't need to believe it, but that's a big reason for me and you can ask other Wurt players that will say the same. Like I addressed earlier, "having no problem passing the seasons with thermal stone or outerwear" is not the same as Wurt's immunity. You don't need to babysit a thermal stone and you free an equipment slot that would otherwise be dedicated to weather protection.

2 hours ago, Trevindo said:

Wurt's strengths have always been his ability to generate resources and his battle around units, both niches that Maxwell does better than Wurt. You asked me if Maxwell kills the queen bee:

Maxwell has an easier time than I expected, the prison is very good. That said, my argument was "I don't think Maxwell can kill the Bee Queen as easily as Wurt, he can certainly kill her way earlier and with way less resources though" and my point remains. Here is me killing the Bee Queen by just holding the attack button for 1 minute.

Your paper doesn't counter my point that more units = more damage. It just proves that if the merm guard stats were better, you could get the same damage with less units, which is not relevant. The lag argument is alright, but it's still an advantage, lag or not. The point of contention was whether or not Wurt has some advantage and I think I made a good point for why these things can be considered advantages.

[Trevindo]

1 hour ago, Vasz_ said:

I'm sorry, but the the season immunity is absolutely a reason to pick Wurt over Maxwell, you don't need to believe it, but that's a big reason for me and you can ask other Wurt players that will say the same. Like I addressed earlier, "having no problem passing the seasons with thermal stone or outerwear" is not the same as Wurt's immunity. You don't need to babysit a thermal stone and you free an equipment slot that would otherwise be dedicated to weather protection.

Maxwell has an easier time than I expected, the prison is very good. That said, my argument was "I don't think Maxwell can kill the Bee Queen as easily as Wurt, he can certainly kill her way earlier and with way less resources though" and my point remains. Here is me killing the Bee Queen by just holding the attack button for 1 minute.

 

Your paper doesn't counter my point that more units = more damage. It just proves that if the merm guard stats were better, you could get the same damage with less units, which is not relevant. The lag argument is alright, but it's still an advantage, lag or not. The point of contention was whether or not Wurt has some advantage and I think I made a good point for why these things can be considered advantages.

Alas, Maxwell can kill the queen bee more easily than Wurt, why did you just admit that, when you said that Maxwell can kill her earlier and with less recourse, that is, in the end both can kill her, only Wurt has to have a much bigger resource drain. In your vid I counted 46 merm Guards the total resource to make the houses is 46 tentacle skins + 230 planks (920 wooden logs) + 92 spears with a total of 60 days to complete the preparation.

The work I sent wasn't written specifically for this topic as you can see, but I put it here, because if you look at the formulas you'll notice that the increase in damage for each additional unit it is linear when against bosses with area damage (most of the game bosses), so much so that there comes a time when you have a very insignificant increase in global damage per new house, so the damage is limited by the lag and a collision effect generated by the units (so many units that they don't have as all hit), that is, it refutes that you can increase the strength of your army in an unrestricted way.

[Vasz_]

17 minutes ago, Trevindo said:

Alas, Maxwell can kill the queen bee more easily than Wurt, why did you just admit that, when you said that Maxwell can kill her earlier and with less recourse, that is, in the end both can kill her, only Wurt has to have a much bigger resource drain. In your vid I counted 46 merm Guards the total resource to make the houses is 46 tentacle skins + 230 planks (920 wooden logs) + 92 spears with a total of 60 days to complete the preparation.

Looks like we're using the word "easy" in different ways. I already specified that I value speed and effortlessness because Wurt is a late game character. To quote myself:

5 hours ago, Vasz_ said:

A merm army is very resource intensive and I won't dispute the fact Maxwell has his army immediately, while Wurt has to work for it, but the difference is that Maxwell can't make his army stronger, they're always capped and will always take a similar amount of effort to kill something. You may not think that's important, but as someone that plays for multiple in-game years, I value how fast I can kill something I already killed a bunch of times more than I value how early I can kill it.

The advantage I speak off is the long term one, when resources are not part of the equation because the army has been created already. I reiterated that when I said:

5 hours ago, Vasz_ said:

Basically, the peak merm army is stronger than the peak Maxwell army, and that's the advantage;

I had already conceded from the start that Maxwell has a resource advantage, and while it's an important point, it doesn't negate what I pointed out.

30 minutes ago, Trevindo said:

The work I sent wasn't written specifically for this topic as you can see, but I put it here, because if you look at the formulas you'll notice that the increase in damage for each additional unit it is linear when against bosses with area damage (most of the game bosses), so much so that there comes a time when you have a very insignificant increase in global damage per new house, so the damage is limited by the lag and a collision effect generated by the units (so many units that they don't have as all hit), that is, it refutes that you can increase the strength of your army in an unrestricted way.

Well I haven't argued that you can increase the strength in an unrestricted way, just that you can increase it. I will say though that the increase is only linear because of the presupposition that "all merms take AoE damage at the same time," which works fine for your paper, but it's not what actually happens.