4/26/2017 by now my guide is a little outdated, i had planned on updating it bit by bit but i don't have much time yet. Just a forewarning that some of the content advice is a little off now.

Hey there and welcome to DD2. I'm Gilthanes and have been playing DD2 pretty much since it came out. I noticed that quite a few of the guides are a little dated or don't exactly give specifics on what characters might want in certain builds or what gear they might need. I just wanted to write up a compendium of the characters and their common roles in a team to give some people starting out fresh from the open alpha some direction if they feel a little lost in the woods.

This is a bit of a work in progress so bare with me as I continue to update the guide with different things from requests and the "coming soon" content you'll find that the bottom of the page, happy hunting all! Give it a thumbs up if it helps you any so it can get some visibility <3

EDIT: Wow guys, 6K unique visitors and 200+ favorites is awesome. Thanks for everyone who said that the guide helped them and to everyone who worked to make it that much better!

I've recently started streaming the game to show people my setups and run my viewers through nm4 liferoot or gates of dragonfall incursion to help them gear up to do the content on their own! I'll also be streaming with other DD2 personalities on new content, but that may just be amongst us just to test the maps!

Come hang out and get some loot!

http://www.twitch.tv/gilthanes


NOTE: The builds I will be describing is all from my own personal experience at the "end game content" and these are just some of the builds that i'd recommend playing for your hero deck if you want to solo content by yourself or provide a huge boon to others. There are of course other builds and defenses that you can make work, but these are just the ones I'm currently using and believe to be the best all around compositions for the characters and their roles.

Now I drew up a rough map of what the whole of the Tavern should look like (That artistic talent doe) and i'll try to explain the roles of the NPC's.

• The spawn point in the lower left is where you will appear after you do the tutorial and the character creation.
  
  
• The first things you should probably do are to either check the items you got from the tutorial level by pressing i or going to the inventory hub in the middle left part of the map.
  
  
• The Quest NPC just past that on the left should probably be your next stop to get and turn in quests that you'll get on your way to level 50.
  
  
• The Scavenger picks up all the items that drop after all of your bags in your inventory fill up, but with a 24 hour timer to pick the items out of it before they're sold. He will also pick up items that have fallen off the level.
• 
  
  
• The War Table and Map NPC will help you select new maps to do in the storyline until you can do freeplay as a game mode.
  
  
• The Costume NPC on the far right will let you put on different skins for your characters.
  
  
• The Gran'masta Sphere NPC will let you purchase all level skill spheres in order to boost your characters abilites, towers, traps and auras depending on the build you want to go.
  
  
• NOTE: The Relic Merchant can only be unlocked after you complete Siphon Site D, a level in the campaign and till then you can't purchase anything from him. Trinkets/Relics are a gear slot that gives a significant stat boost and will give % dmg increases on skills and towers.
  
  
• The Blacksmith will let you find decent upgrades before you hit level 50, but afterwards is pretty lackluster.
  
  
• NOTE: The Enchant/Upgrade Gear Merchant cannot be unlocked until one of your characters is level 34, and will let you put a piece of gear in the center, then put other gear around that will "melt" down to impove the centered piece of gear.
  
  
• The Wyvern Token Merchant will allow you to spend the tokens you earn from your daily and monthly missions (can be viewed with J, and i at the bottom of your inventory screen). These Uber Spheres are used to improve your skills and towers immensely.
  

NOTE: I've included this section because I've been posting it on Reddit quite a bit trying to help people get a good idea of what they should be looking for exactly on their gear for each specific character type they were running, whether it be builder or a dps character. This spreadsheet explains in depth of what end game gear is looking for in regards to specific stats and rolls and in reference to the builds i'll be recommending with the guide below.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1n8UuSeKi6pynk80HijuNqRSvdV4PzxO8TTj9Z9Gk_ls/edit#gid=0

I'll be referencing this after explaining what the builds aim is and what primary gear stats people should look for, but for all you min/max people who don't want the more broad explaination that's the place for you!

So you've put your defenses down and now you have all those extra green gems. There are 3 main things you can do with your defenses both in and out of combat:

• Upgrading your defenses with the "Q" button
  
• Repairing your defenses with the "R" button
  
• Selling your defenses with the "Z" button
  
• View detailed info about your defense with "E" button
  
• Seeing the full information about waves spawning with the "Shift" button

By level 20 you should have unlocked all your abilites and towers, and you can upgrade up to tier 5 when you hit level 22.

Upgrading: When you upgrade a defense, you're essentially giving that particular defense a huge boost in power, health and range. This becomes important because you'll need to both have a lot of defenses out on the map, but also upgrading them to deal with heavy waves of monsters. Once at tier 5, the defense is capped for upgrading and can only be repaired or sold.

Respectively the cost to upgrade goes up with each Tier as well:

Tier 1-> Tier 2: 50 mana
Tier 2 -> Tier 3: 100 mana
Tier 3 -> Tier 4: 150 mana
Tier 4 -> Tier 5: 200 mana

Repairing: Repairing a defense is more used to heal up your barricades that are currently taking damage in a fight. When you hit R and select a tower or defense it will heal it or restore charges/aura %'s over time until you hit R again to cancel it or it's full repaired. This will take some of your green mana at about 1 per second until you cancel or it gains full health.

NOTE: The Construction passive on the glove slots are a MUST for higher level content since you will be repairing your blockades when mobs start dealing damage to it. Construction increases the repair rate are a very valuable roll to have.
Selling: Selling a defense can be useful if you need to reposition something or need to free up some of the Build cap to better optimize your setup. Note that when you go to sell it, you'll be getting less in return, and moreso if the defense is already damaged. Typically you'll get about half to a third of the cost of building it back for a level 1 defense, and you lose more after upgrading them so choose what to upgrade wisely!

Shift: Holding down Shift in the building phase will allow you to see all the enemies that are coming from every lane by mousing over the spawner. This will tell you what type of resistance they have (none, physical, magical), exactly what enemies are spawning, and what wave within the actual sequence they'll appear. This is useful since you'll need to prioritze upgrading your defenses in certain lanes if they have a miniboss or lots of ranged creeps/armored ogres.

Loot and Auto Collect: So if you hit "i" to open your inventory, you'll notice a small checkbox at the bottom of the bag marked "auto-loot". When you click this on one or multiple bags, it will automatically fill those bags to capacity at the end of every round inside of a map. You can set the preferences for each of your inventory bags to sort it by rarity, level or type of equipment, and when it collects and the end of the round it will arrange it accordingly.

All the gold, regardless if you have auto loot bags will be collected by hitting G to start/end the round, and will always be picked up.
If you find yourself missing items or loot check with the Scavenger NPC in the tavern and he should have auto looted anything that fell off the level or didn't make it into your bags by any freak accident. It does however have a 48 hour timer to claim the items to grab em quick!

Skill Spheres:


First things first, you have your character and maybe you'll have an idea of what kind of character you want to turn it into, basically boiling down into a builder or a DPS. Spheres let you hone in on a specific roll by boosting your abilities, stats or towers in meaningful ways to help you get the most out of a build you want. The sphere slots can be located by hitting I, going to your character, and under the stats tab you should be able to see the sphere slots.

These slots are level gated, so about every 10 levels you gain access to new slots and can improve your own style of play by buying the permanent sphere that you can use on any character and can be equipped simultaneously between them!

Small Spheres are generally used as just a small boost to range or damage of your abilites or towers.

Medium Spheres improve the global effects such as range, gold gain, exp gain or chances to proc effects on hit from your character.

Large Spheres are focused heavily on the damage aspect of your abilities or towers by providing secondary effects such as more explosions, more attacks or wider aura ranges.

Lastly, the Uber Spheres are what I refer to as "Build Enablers" it's basically what makes something extremely viable and flexible for use in all difficulties of the game. The Uber Spheres let you make a whole new type of playstyle with an existing ability or tower such as changing the damage type from physical to magical, blocking damage based on a % of your Defense Health or making your abilities deal massive damage to single targets.

Stat Points: So you may have noticed when you're leveling up, you're gaining these stat points but you may not know what they are, where they are or how to allocate them. Well, if you hit i and go to your character, you should see a tab with Hero Statistics on the left, if you click that it should bring up all your hero's stats along with how many total points you have and left to spend. There are a number of "soft caps" to the allocation of these stats, meaning that once you invest over a certain number of points, there are diminishing returns in the amount of points you're getting for the Stat points you're putting in.

Here are some of the stat soft caps gathered by Propensity, Rhinobane and others from the offical DD2 forums, and all of this is credited to them.

Link to the forum thread: https://dungeondefenders.com/2/topic/126111/sas-soft-caps?scrollTo=1172669

Squire:
Defensive Health - 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 1 health per point)
Defensive Power - 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 1 power per point)
Defensive Speed- No Cap
Defensive Critical Damage- 15 Points ( after 15 points you only gain 3.5 damage per point)
Defensive Range- No Cap
Hero Health- 100 Points (after 100 points you only gain 4 health per point)
Hero Damage- 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 2.8 damage per point)
Ability Power - 15 points (after 15 points you only gain 1 ap per point)
Hero Critical Damage- 15 points (after 15 points you only gain 3.5 damage per point)



Huntress:
Defensive Health - 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 1 health per point)
Defensive Power - 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 1 power per point)
Defensive Speed- No Cap
Defensive Critical Damage- 15 Points ( after 15 points you only gain 3.5 damage per point)
Defensive Range- No Cap
Hero Health- 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 2.5 health per point)
Hero Damage- 20 Points (after 20 points you only gain 5 damage per point)
Ability Power - 15 points (after 15 points you only gain 1 ap per point)
Hero Critical Damage- 15 points (after 15 points you only gain 3.5 damage per point)



Apprentice:
Defensive Health - 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 1 health per point)
Defensive Power - 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 1 power per point)
Defensive Speed- No Cap
Defensive Critical Damage- 15 Points ( after 15 points you only gain 3.5 damage per point)
Defensive Range- No Cap
Hero Health- 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 3 health per point)
Hero Damage- 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 4 damage per point)
Ability Power - 20 points (after 20 points you only gain 1 ap per point)
Hero Critical Damage- 15 points (after 15 points you only gain 3.5 damage per point)



Monk:
Defensive Health - 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 1 health per point)
Defensive Power - 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 1 power per point)
Defensive Speed- No Cap
Defensive Critical Damage- 15 Points ( after 15 points you only gain 3.5 damage per point)
Defensive Range- No Cap
Hero Health- 100 Points (after 100 points you only gain 4 health per point)
Hero Damage- 15 Points (after 15 points you only gain 2.5 damage per point)
Ability Power - 15 points (after 15 points you only gain 1 ap per point)
Hero Critical Damage- 15 points (after 15 points you only gain 3.5 damage per point)

Campaign: The roots of the game, which every one of us will have to play through to unlock the other content/difficulties of the game. Basically a linear progression of quests and maps to get you to the big bad boss. Once you complete this, you'll unlock freeplay, which gives you daily allotments of exp% boosts or better loot gain chance.

Freeplay: This is the mode you'll want to grind if you just want the exp bonuses to max out, get a few friends, some nice exp % spheres and rock throne room till you're sick to the stomach and have a lvl 50 character.

Incursion: This mode is kind of like a Challenge Mode. There's a main baddie, who does special things to the mobs or map in general, such as speeding up the monsters. After the end of the 4 rounds, he'll appear on the map for the 5th round, which is an amped up version of bosses you'll have faced in freeplay. There are incursion based drops for loot and the payoffs for them are immense with most having some sort of special skill tied to them.

Onslaught: Think like a Survival mode, mobs come at you in waves and each wave gets harder and harder. There are payouts every 3 waves, and bigger rewards like golden eggs at wave 15 and 30. Unless you REALLY want a golden pet I suggest you avoid this mode like the plague since the payouts are substantially worse than the time and effort put into getting it.

End Game: Oh boy, this is what you've been waiting for, THIS is the mode that has loot. You'll waste you daily 5 map bonus here if you want to improve your gear after you've already been geared up at lvl 50. Note that this mode tiers all the way up to Nightmare 4, so try to stay around where you can safely kill things off and progress up.

End Game Incursion: Same thing as Incursion but will make you sob on the floor if you don't have the gear to do it. This is pretty much where you'll be farming most of the end game content and drops when you hit nm3 and nm4.

End Game Onslaught: Same deal, avoid it, just not worth it imo.

So you want to get your character to 50 as fast as possible huh? Well ok then, currently there's no real transitional way to level up from around lvl 35-50 without just grinding experience.

I personally recommend leveling a Squire to 50 first as a class. Not only does it let you place the blockades down to stop the bosses, but the cannonball towers easily solo content because of their ability to hit ground and air, have a large attack range and low placement cost. The builds down below are far more end game focused so just go for an all around squire with defense power and defense health to get through the campaign and some freeplay content.

In order of priority to level your characters, I would say that this is probably the smoothest progression:

• Squire (first lvl 50, makes content a lot easier to setup with walls/cannonball turrets)
  
• Trap Huntress/DPS Huntress (Interchangable, but you'll be needing an apprentice with frostfire/frosty power to make the most of your traps. DPS Huntress stays viable through all difficulty contents and deals reliable damage).
  
• Apprentice (starting to get towards higher difficulty tiers, can search for frosty power/frostfire gear)
  
• DPS Huntress/Trap Huntress (the essential 4th hero slot, since sometimes your traps will need a little help, and extremely strong vs any resistance lane)
  
• Aura Monk (Not needed in most commonly used map setups, but a good addition if you can get decent gear on him)

That being said, my first suggestion is to take whatever money you have and straight away invest it in the 20% experience gained Medium Spheres. Not only is this great for the first character you're leveling up, but it will make leveling your alternate characters to fill out your hero deck much easier. You'll need to be at least level 30 to equip both of them, but after you get them equipped in both of your medium slots, you'll be gaining nearly a level and a half per mission you run on a 7 wave map.

Secondly,the most noteworthy of this is to level one hero to 50. While you're xping lvl one at a time. Each lvl 50 in your deck gives a 35% xp bonus to everyone else. Once you have 3 50s it takes about 13maps using dailies to get to 50.

The third experience boost is the 15% experience boost for saving the sub-objectives (The silver shield icons) on any map that contains them. This again cumulates if there are more than one on the map.

Next comes the actual part of the leveling, each day you get 5 exp boost gains on any of the "Freeplay" maps to help your leveling along, you're going to abuse that as much as you can and it resets daily so don't be afraid to use them all up.

NOTE: Running duo Habinger boss with a higher leveled friend is the most optimal way to gain experience for your character the fastest. I have provided the below examples for if you plan to do it completely solo without duo'ing the maps. The basic premise for the Harbinger boss fight is to have one person constantly dps him while the other low level activates the cannons on the middle part of the map over and over to quickly kill him when he attaches to his turret to fire on your core.

Below is an example of the experience you gain for completing each map. Credit to A Regular Eevee/ScorpionKing0 for all the work on the EXP and build time setups!

NOTE: All of the experience numbers that are recorded are fulfilled with the same exact hero, a level 50 Hearty Blockade Squire, and is the only one in the hero deck, so the experience bonus is +35% for having a level 50 Hero. As you complete your next heroes and add your experience orbs to your current ones expect higher xp returns and faster times.



Each picture in the description of the map contains a lane that either you need to watch or is a solution to unique problem on the map. Every other lane is done the same 1-2 Barricades and 3 Cannonball Towers.

Liferoot Forest on hard has one sub-objective and a very popular map so, familiarizing yourself to it is not a bad thing. Place barricades far ahead of Quab, your sub-objective, to protect it from javelin throwers. With Quab suppressing the main flying lane, this map has 4 ground lanes, and 2 flying lanes. The flying lanes follow the same path as the two ground lanes to the side. Set-up all four lanes normally and watch for Kobolds running around the barricades.



Nimbus Reach on hard has one sub-objective and is only useful for the daily bonus experience. With 6 ground lanes and 2 flying lanes spread out afar. This map is possibly the hardest map to manage, but doable with the right build.





Little-Horn Valley on hard contains two sub-objectives and ties with “Throne Room” on experience and time to completion. With 5 ground lanes and 2 flying lanes. Build 1 barricade and 3 turrets per ground lane plus 2 turrets for each of the flying lanes and this map is controllable.



Throne Room on hard is currently the easiest map to AFK. With 6 lanes, just put 3-4 turrets on each lane and start the wave. The only real problems are the mini bosses and the last ogre, on wave 7. So make sure to pay attention to that on the last wave. If you do not have a character to level 50 yet, this map is the prefered method to leveling up.



Greystone Plaza is currently the best map to earn experience. With 4 ground lanes, and two flying lanes. A simple barricade and 3 cannonball turrets takes care of the all four lanes and one flying lane. Just place 3 towers on the bridge and start the wave. Again prepare for the mini bosses and the ogre on wave 7.



Closing word:

For the fastest leveling, you’ll somewhat need to balance how strong your character is to what map you’re running, so if you find yourself struggling pretty badly don’t get discouraged too much. The fastest way to level is to make sure to use the 5 daily bonuses if nothing else, run them on any difficulty if you have to, but that’s one of the single largest boosts to your exp gain in addition to the spheres and lvl 50 heroes in your hero deck.

Also, don’t be afraid to invite friends to try to help you out, the lanes get harder but before level 50, most builder characters damage will be enough to still outweigh the costs of having them in the party. After you get your 5 dailies done you can just keep running Throne Room or Greystone Plaza over again if you feel like it since they’re the easiest to set up and most exp respectively. Good luck out there, and don't let the grinding get you down!

So before you hit the end game builds below, I've gotten quite a few people asking what they should do for leveling their specific character, since they can't focus on specialized builds until you have around 2-3 characters maxed out, i'll be describing builds to use BEFORE that point. This is assuming you'll be using that same character to try to progress through content until you're level 50.

Squire: Until 50, setting up 1-2 blockades and setting 2-3 cannonball turrets behind it will allow you to solo most, not if all content until you hit higher difficulties. Cannonball towers have a great range, can target ground as well as air and deal pretty consistent damage. Factor in you can get the Shellshock passive on your sword to give it a 2 second stun % on hit, it's pretty formidable.



Huntress: Just laying the explosive traps (4 per lane might do it) and a poison dart tower off to the side should finish off any lingering mobs that got through your breadcrumb trail of explosive traps. You can place a Blaze Balloon if 2 paths of the mobs meet at a certain point to deal some Area of Effect damage coming in. I'd highly recommend having a squire in you deck second so you can just stack traps in front of his walls. Huntress has no way of dealing with air aside from her killing them herself or using the Poison Dart Towers!



Apprentice: Almost the same setup as the Squire, putting down his own version of the blockade and putting 2 to 3 flameburst towers behind it will be able to kill most content, since again, the flameburst towers can target air and ground, and their turret does some splash damage from the initial shot onto the mob. You can also use the Frost Tower when 2 lanes converge to give your flameburst towers time to kill everything, since the apprentice blockades have less hp than his squire counterpart.

For DPS Apprentice try to find Superconductor and Channel rolls on his helmet, and superconductor + tornado knockup time on trinket.



Monk: Sort of the same approach as the Huntress, you'll be laying around 4 lightning auras per lane pretty much in a line or tight group to kill off anything that comes out of the spawners. If air units are spawning put down a Skyguard tower towards you main core and it will kill them for you. Bosses you can put down a serenity aura near your lightning traps and just auto attack the boss when he gets inside of them. Again, I'd highly recommend getting a squire to go with him as soon as possible to put a blockade down in front of his lightning aura traps.

SUGGESTED Pets per class (If they're going to be run in the map):

• Squire: Dracolich (Monthly Exclusive) Bearkira (Monthly Exclusive), Nharwagon (Monthly Exclusive), Curse Aura Pet (Creeper Exclusive)
  
• Huntress (Trap): Anything with Defense Power and Defense Health/Defense Critical Damage.
  
• Huntress (DPS): Dracolich (Monthly Exclusive) Poison Tips (Earth damage-based pet roll), Bearkira (Monthly Exclusive) Sandstorm (Earth Pet Exclusive).
  
• Apprentice (Frosty Power): Anything with Defense Power and Defense Health
  
• Apprentice (DPS): Poison Tips (Earth damage-based pet roll), Bearkira (Monthly Exclusive) Sandstorm (Earth Pet Exclusive).
  
• Monk (Aura): Anything with Defense Power and Defense Health/Defense Critical Damage.

Pet materials are dropped via boxes from bosses and minibosses, while Shellium shards are gained by letting your eggs 48 hour timer expire to let it "rot" into shellium shards.

This is a up to date guide on the current pets/pet abilites in the game, no pets but the legendary monthly pets get unique abilites, the rest are dependant on the egg it's hatched from. The current lists were compiled by both Pachipachio, Grim_Indeed and Sublimital from the Official DD2 forums and I'm copying their content to help people better understand the pet abilites.

The rarity of the pet will effect the "scaling" of the pet, so the pet may seem underwhelming in the earlier levels, but will outscale the other pets later on in the higher evoloutions. The damage is also deceptive, since it doesn't list the amount of projectiles the pet fires, so one with 100 base dmg might fire 6 projectiles and be better than the one shot for 400 dmg from a green pet.

Links to their threads: https://dungeondefenders.com/2/topic/124638/compendium-of-pet-abilities

https://dungeondefenders.com/2/topic/122709/compilation-of-pet-abilities?scrollTo=1147055#1147055

Dracolich Breath

Cone AOE increased per level (10, 25, 45) and deals an extra 50%/100%/150% damage to mobs from all sources for 5-7 seconds.

Stranglethorn: Earth
Straight Line Multiple Target, 5 Target Max
6 Seconds, 24 ticks
365% Hero dmg 12 CD

Blizzard (Water damage exclusive) credit @Grim_indeed from this thread

• AOE cenetred on caster (Large - 4 training dummy radius)
  
• Lasts 11 seconds, ticks 12 times. Hero damage ratio of 19%
  
• 228% Hero damage per cast. 12 second cooldown.
  
• = 17.5% HD/s

Curse Aura (Creeper exclusive)

• AOE centered on caster (Large - 4 training dummy radius)
  
• Lasts 10 seconds, ticks 11 times. Hero damage ratio of 20%
  
• 220% Hero damage per cast. 12 Second Cooldown.
  
• = 16.9% HD/s
  
• Additionally, huge speed boost for first 3 seconds of activation and will reduce damage dealt by monsters being damaged by aura by 50%

Dragon Breath (Dragon exclusive)

• 90 Degree fan centered on caster (Small - 2? training dummy range)
  
• Lasts 3 seconds, ticks 3 times. Hero damage ratio of 20%
  
• 60% Hero damage per cast. 12 second cooldown
  
• = 4.6% HD/s
  

Dragon Protection (Dragon exclusive)

• AOE centered on caster (Large - 4 cannons radius)
  
• Lasts 10 seconds
  
• 60 Second Cooldown
  
• Increases the HP of all defenses by 10%
  
• Which currently doesn't do much except increase the rate that someone can repair a defense by 10% because the hp added is empty - similar to boost aura + blockade sphere and its interactions with a blockade.

Encouragement (Gato exclusive)

• Self
  
• Restores 60 Hero Mana
  
• 20 sec cooldown

Fire Barrage (Fire exclusive) Credit Ambiguous from the pet compilation thread

• Single Target
  
• Fires 6 times. Hero damage ratio of 93.4%
  
• 560.4% Hero damage per cast. 7 second cooldown.
  
• = 70% HD/s
  

Fire Pillar (Fire exclusive) Credit Subz1 from the pet compilation thread

• AOE center on target location (Medium - 4 training dummy diameter)
  
• Lasts 3 seconds, ticks 4 times. Hero damage ratio of 72%
  
• 288% Hero damage per cast. 15 second cooldown.
  
• = 18% HD/s
  

Gato Fireworks (Gato exclusive)

• Single Target (3 bolts)
  
• 672% Hero damage per cast. 7 second cooldown.
  
• = 84% HD/s
  

Grave Bolt (Creeper exclusive)

• Single Target
  
• 371% Hero damage per cast. 7 Second Cooldown.
  
• = 46.4% HD/s
  
• Additionally, full heal if the bolt hits a target

Hex (Creeper Exclusive)

• AoE centered on caster (Large - 4 training dummy radius)
  
• Lasts 4 seconds, but only damages 3 times. Hero damage ratio of 21%
  
• 63% Hero damage per cast. 12 Second Cooldown.
  
• = 4.8% HD/s
  
• Additionally, (not personally tested) will reduce damage dealt by monsters being damaged by aura by 50%. Just assuming it works like curse aura's curse.

Ice Ball (Water damage exclusive) credit @Grim_indeed from this thread

• AoE (Rolls through 5 targets before disappearing)
  
• 149% Hero damage per cast. 7 second cooldown.
  
• = 18.6% HD/s
  
• Additionally, doesn't chill.
  

Lightning Grenade (Shock damage exclusive)

• AoE projectile with damage drop off (Large - 4 dummy radius)
  
• 236% Hero damage per cast. 12 second cooldown.
  
• = 18.1% HD/s
  
• Additionally, damage drop off is large and will stick to first surface hit. Projectile is affected by gravity
  

Lil' Betsy Projectile (Lil' Betsy exclusive) credit @Grim_indeed from this thread

• Single Target
  
• 536% Hero damage per cast. 7 Second Cooldown.
  
• = 67% HD/s
  
• Additionally, curses target for the duration.

Oil Spit (Earth damage exclusive) credit @Grim_indeed from this thread

• AoE projectile (Large- 3 dummy radius)
  
• 63% Hero damage per cast. 12 second cooldown.
  
• = 4.85% HD/s
  
• Additionally, oils enemies and projectile is affected by gravity. Also has damage drop off the farther from impact the target is
  

Poison Spit (Dragon exclusive? Earth Exclusive? - this pet had both)

• Single Target
  
• 373% Hero damage per cast. 7 Second Cooldown.
  
• = 46.6% HD/s

Shock Shield (Electric exclusive)

• Shield It reflects damage(?)
  
• 15 second cooldown.
  
• Lasts 10 seconds.

This is a buddy's pet and I got frustrated dealing with a high leveled legendary pet on poorly geared characters (he stopped playing a bit ago) and the pet just obliterates low level content but the squire gets mashed up in higher level content where I can get one monster to hit me for a while to get definitive results.

For sure there's some reflect mechanic at play, I noticed that an ogre that beat me worth about 6k damage took almost 20k damage while the goblins were getting 1700-2400 damage ticks appearing from hitting me for around 200ish damage. I'd also suspect there's a strange way that player resistances would interfere with coming up with simple damage calculations. The shield abilities are going to be tough to test.

Sword Field (Exclusive to Possessed Sword) Credit AcheronEvilx from his own thread

• AOE targeted on target location (Small - 3 target dummy diameter)
  
• Lasts 29 seconds, ticks 88 times. Hero damage ratio of 14.5%
  
• 1276% Hero damage per cast. 120 second cooldown.
  
• = 10.5% HD/s

Rock Throw (Earth damage exlcusive)

• Single target
  
• 448% Hero damage per cast. 7 second cooldown.
  
• = 56% HD/s

Thunderbolt (Exclusive to Thunder-0)

• AOE targeted on target location (Small - 3 training dummies diameter)
  
• Lasts 4 seconds, ticks 5 times. Hero damage ratio of 31%
  
• 153% Hero damage per cast. 12 Second Cooldown.
  
• = 11.8% HD/s

Wyvern Tokens are earned from completing your daily tasks (hit J to see the mission, i to see the token number at the bottom) and from the monthly mission if you complete it. They can be completed on any character and you can have up to 3 total with the ability to reroll the mission every day.

These tokens are used to start the "End game" content because of the overwhelming damage and special effects to your abilites and towers, so it's vitally important to spend them in a preferred order to be able to do end game content as soon as possible.

In order of priority:

• 1). Elemental Chaos Uber
  
• 2). Stickynades
  
• 3). Shielding Guard Uber (From hitting level 50 on one character from questlines)
  
• 4). Flamethrower Uber
  
• 5). Lightning Strikes Aura Uber
  
• 6). Apprentice Tornado Uber
  
• 7). Squire Sword Beam/Squire Heavy Cannonball/Monk Healing Wave Uber

These two are pretty much interchangable for your Huntress (one for your DPS, one for your Trapper). The Elemental Chaos (my preferred first) allows you to setup for BOTH physical resistance and magical resistance lanes by equipping and unequipping it to change your traps damage type.

The Sticknades Uber is probably the most consistent form of Physical DPS in the game besides holding left click down. The multiple grenades it launches will ALSO stack onto a larger mob/boss if you walk up pretty much point blank and activate the ability. Combined with the huntress' ability to deal magical damage with Piercing Shot it makes her extremely flexible in clearing out both resistance lanes.

Shielding Uber on your Blockades is a must on your Squire for higher level content since it scales for 100% on defense health, it provides a great shield and helps if you healing the barricade.

Flamethrower and Lightning Strikes Uber are your alternatives if you find elemental chaos traps bland and boring. While not having the effectiveness/versatility of the huntress trap, they do well in modes like Onslaught where huge waves spawn for the flamethrower uber or using the LSA for the large HP bosses in front of a blockade.

Apprentice Tornado Uber is useful for a DPS Apprentice if you see all the lanes get the "Grounded" effect (unable to knockup) and need to deal more damage to the wave/boss.

And the rest are a tie for pretty much last place, not having a real use because they're unoptimized for end game content, are a decreased in dps in exchange for range, or have a far more useful uber to replace for it (such as Shielding Uber).

The Abyss Lord is a hybrid build character that scales insanely well off Defense Power and Ability Power. His kit promotes a lot of beefy walls but the highlight are his skeletal archers. The archers have INSANE range, damage and can fire from both sides, making it easy to place them for multiple lanes and have constant damage output for a low Build Cost.

The main build I use for Abyss Lord is the Explosive Archer build, which ultilizes his skeletal archers to deal AoE damage to any target hit with a 50% chance. This coupled with the immense range and firing speed makes it so it's both a huge single target damage dealer along with a great trash clearing one as well.

Now, to make your Archers as strong as possible, you'll want to focus on looking for gear with the following stats:

• Defense Power (Primary)
  
• Defense Crit/Ability Power (Primary, User Preference)
  
• Archer Damage 10% (Secondary)
  
• Explosive Archer passive 400% (Weapon and Trinket)

Sphere Setup:

• Stay at Bay
  
• Power Overwhelming
  
• User Preference
  
• User Preference

SAS Points:

• 200 points in Defense Power
  
• Max points in Defense Speed, Defense Range
  
  • 15 points in Defense Crit
    
  • 15 points in Defense Health

The EV2 excels at both building and as a DPS, giving her some of the better flexibility options for the gear that drops for you in the game. Her basic kit revolves around her using the Heat mechanic as a spender instead of mana to fuel her abilities and different beam type nodes to deal damage and buff other towers.

The main build i'll focus on for this is the Proton cannon, which is her number 3 ability which makes her stationary but capable of outputting some serious hurt with a ton of ability power and hero crit. Looking for heat% reduction gear for proton cannon since you'll be holding it down for quite awhile to clear the lane.

Now, to add the most damage to your beam, you'll want to focus on looking for gear with the following stats:

• Ability Power (Primary)
  
• Hero Crit Damage/Hero Damage (Primary, User Preference)
  
• Heat Reduction 6% (Secondary)
  
• Hero Critical Chance (Secondary)

Sphere Setup:

• Heat Dispenser Module
  
• Heat Capacitor
  
• Proton Charge Deflect
  
• Proton Flame Charge (Currently not working)
  
• Oiled Strikes

SAS Points:

• Max Ability Power
  
• Rest in Hero Critical

The Squire is a melee class character who specializes in being able to take a hit and creating defenses that play to this aspect as well. One of the wonderful aspects of his kit is that he gains an extra equipment slot since he can provide himself with a shield as well as a sword, letting you get more stat points invested into your characters than the rest.

The main build I'll be focusing on is the "Blockade Squire" which prioritizes putting as much Health onto his Barricade defense as to let other classes damage towers/traps do the brunt of the damage without getting hit.


The blockade that the squire gets to put down is immensely powerful in that it plugs up "choke points" on any given map, forcing the mobs to stop and attack the blockade since it hinders their movement pathing. You'll be wanting to put these anywhere the path narrows down and bottlenecks so you can let defenses sit behind them to kill off the mobs approaching.

Now, to add health onto your blockades to make them as beefy as possible, you'll want to focus on looking for gear with the following stats:

• Defense Health (Primary)
  
• Hero Health/Defense Power (Primary, User Preference)
  
• Hearty Blockade Passive 25% (Secondary)
  
• Automation (on sword, helm and trinket)

Sphere Setup: Defense Health, Defense Health and Hero Health Small Spheres, Medium Spheres are personal preference but I went with Movement Speed V and Shield Block, Vengance Large Sphere and the Shielding Guard Uber.

SAS Points:

• 200 points in Defense Health
  
• 180 points into Hero Health
  Alternate:
  
  • 200 points in Defense Health
    
  • 165 points in Defense Power
    
  • 15 points in Defense Crit Damage
    
    
    
    

The Cannonball Squire is currently the only real other alternative to the physical based Huntress Traps in the game. While not having the synergy with Frosty Power or massive Area of Effect, what it lacks in crowd damage it makes up for in HUGE single target damage. With the right about of Tower Range and placement, cannonball towers can be used to great effect to shatter frozen mobs.

For gear stats you'll want the following:

• Defense Power (Primary)
  
• Defense Critical Damage (Primary)
  
• Defense Critical Chance (5% Secondary)
  
• Iron Core (3% on all slots)
  
• Vector Corrector (3% on armors)

Sphere Setup:
Defense Speed V, Defence Critical Chance 3%, Defense Critical Damage V Small Spheres, 2 Squire Tower Range Medium Spheres, Oiled Strikes Large Sphere, Shielding Guard Uber.

SAS Allocation:

• Max Defense Power
  
• Max Tower Range
  
• Max Defense Speed
  
• 15 points in Defense Health
  
• 15 points in Defense Critical Damage

The Huntress is a long range class who specializes in disabling her opponents through Crowd Control or dealing Damage over Time to them through towers or traps.

This particular build is the "Trap Huntress" who focuses heavily on using her Explosive Trap ability to clear out mobs moving down their attack path or clustered in choke points in front of walls to deal loads of damage. The traps have a decently low build cost as well, so it doesn't hurt your cap in the level much even with quite a few of them down.


The Explosive Trap is mainly used to deal constant damage to mobs in front or around your walls or when you know where ranged monsters will stop and focus attacking your barricade. They can also be laid down like a trail of bread crumbs to weaken up mobs in a lane to be finished off by other towers later on.

Since your traps have a certain number of "charges", it's important to have some Defense Health on one piece since when they're depleted it deletes the trap altogether from the map.

The Trap Huntress build should be looking for the following primary and secondary stats:

• Defense Power (Primary)
  
• Defense Critical Damage(Primary)
  
• Defense Critical Chance(secondary)
  
• Tripwire Passive (3% per piece)
  
• Volatile Schematics (3% per piece)

Sphere Setup: Defense Speed, Defense Power, Defense Critical Chance (preference) Small Spheres, Huntress Range Radius Increase, Defense Critical Chance Medium Sphere, Fire for Effect Large Sphere, Elemental Chaos Uber Sphere.

The Huntress as a DPS is probably the easiest and most favorable class to consistently lay down damage to single target monsters in the game without putting herself in too terribly much danger. With her ability to Crowd Control mobs with a stun, slow their movement speed with their damage over time grenade and clearing physical resistant lanes with a Piercing shot, she's very flexible and dealing with any monster combination.

The main source of your damage is going to come from being able to hold down left click while weaving the abilities in between. Since the Huntress' attack only hits one target at a time, it becomes that much more important to be able to kill that target quickly to focus other, more damaging targets that might be behind the smaller minions pouring in. Since the Concussion grenades provides reliable Crowd Control with a low cooldown through a significant portion of the game, you should be using it off cooldown. Piercing Shot has a large cooldown and mana cost, but will continue to travel in a line until it hits terrain, so try to line it up to hit either a line of enemies or multiple lanes.

The DPS huntress should prioritize:

• Hero Damage (Primary)
  
• Hero Critical Damage (Primary)
  
• Hero Critical Chance (Secondary)
  
• Concussive Shot Duration (On bow and trinket)
  
• Shrapnel (3% Concussion/Sticknades dmg)

Sphere Setup: Hero Critical Chance 3%, Hero Damage V, Hero Critical Damage V Small Spheres, Hero Critical Chance 5%, Anti Air 20% Medium Spheres, Charged Primary (if you have a good 4 attacks per second bow), 35% range damage (if you have a good 2 attacks per second bow). Stickynades Uber, can be equipped and unequipped depending on the map farm.

The Apprentice is another one of those flexible characters that can be a pretty preferred DPS or Builder depending on the role your team needs filled. The Frostfire/Frost Power Build however focuses on the single Crowd Control tower; The Frost Tower.


The Frost Tower at first glance seems pretty underwhelming, dealing no damage and when compared to things like his Flameburst or Earthshatter Tower, but this one trick pony is the single greatest damage boost to your Huntress' Traps and aura's in the game. The slow focuses one monster, while slowing the rest in a radius around the target. Now the way the frosty power works is that any of the traps/auras/towers within the slow radius around the mob being hit gains a boost to defense power. The frosty power scales off the apprentices defense power.

Additionally, the Chilling Touch legendary staff is the only staff that will roll the Frostfire affix for a secondary. It's quite rare but can be gotten as a drop on any character, much like the Purge Evil staff or the Splody Harpoon sword.

The frostfire apprentice should look for gear with:

• Defense Power (Primary)
  
• Defense Health (Primary)
  
• Frosty Power (Secondary)
  
• Frostfire (Secondary on apprentice staff)
  
• Snowstorm (Secondary on staff and relic)
  
• Vector Corrector (3% on armor)

Sphere Setup: Defense Power V, 2 Frost Tower Range 2% Small Spheres, Frost Tower Range Increase X 2 Medium Spheres, Frost Tower Freeze Large Sphere, Shielding Uber Large Sphere.

The Flamethrower Apprentice focuses on the Flamethrower Uber from the Wyvern Merchant for 60 tokens. This characters build excels in extremely crowded lane settings and has the benefit of dealing constant punishing magical damage in an Area of Effect line.

The other unique thing about the Flamethrower Tower is that it can rotate 360 degrees to hit ANY mobs within the radius. This however doesn't come without risks, because it's relatively short range can put it in easy to target spots. The other thing that is somewhat of a negative is if it unintentionally focuses a magic resistant lane and stays on it, resulting in quite a loss of Damage per Second in a resistant lane.

As for gear, you'll be looking for the following on your towers:

• Defense Power (Primary)
  
• Defense Critical Damage (Primary)
  
• Pyromania (3% on all pieces)
  
• Defense Critical Chance (5% on armors)
  
• Vector Corrector (3% on armors)

Sphere Setup:
Defense Speed V, 2 Flamethrower Range 4% Small Spheres, 2 Apprentice Tower Range 10% Medium Spheres, Flameburst/Flamethrower Large Sphere, Flamethrower Uber Sphere

SAS Point Allocation:

• max points in Defense Power
  
• max points in Tower Range
  
• max points in Defense Speed
  
• 15 points in Defense Health
  
• 15 points in Defense Critical Damage

The DPS Apprentice is extremely good against the tough physical lanes that tend to show up on maps, especially those with more than 3 lanes and you'll probably need one when moving up to the super high endgame content that most players are running (Ramparts Incursion, Betsy NM4, ect.) because of the need to roll a double physical lane somewhere on the map.

There are two different paths you can go down with the apprentice, one that focuses on hero damage and ability power with all the regular staff drops in the game for dps, or a highly specialized root with 2 unique staff drops. I'll be describing both and the pro's and cons of the builds.

First off, let's start with just regular DPS apprentice that you can use with any staff, including the ones that are unique if you feel like it. This involves getting gear with the following stats on it.

• Hero Damage (Primary)
  
• Ability Power (Primary)
  
• Hero Critical Chance (Secondary 5% per armor piece)
  
• Arcanist (Weapon/Trinket)
  
• Superconductor and Channel (3% on all armor pieces)

Sphere Setup: Hero Damage V, Hero Cricial Damage, Hero Critical Chance Small Spheres, Medium Spheres are personal preference but I went with Apprentice Cooldown 25% and Marked target increase 2 or mana regen 2 per second Medium Spheres, Oiled Strikes Large Sphere and Apprentice Tornado Uber.

With this build, you'll focus on getting as much ability power as you possibly can to spam your Arcane volley and Tornado ability. The objective is to mark as many targets as fast as possible, then use the Arcane Volley and Tornado to deal increased damage to them. For this, using a Stormkeeper legendary staff with a Standard projectile spread would probably be the best. A 4 per second shot projectile spread on a standard weapon attack will "fan" the attack out horizontally, marking a wide range of targets quickly for you to use Arcane Volley on. Try to mark at least 4-5 enemies every time before proccing your abilities if at all possible. Try to get as many Arcanist passives as you can along with the Marked Target medium sphere for an additional 2 marks, along with the 25% cooldown on Apprentice abilty sphere.

The next build will be using far more hero critical damage in it, and focuses on these two weapons:



Focus on these for the builds listed below:

• Hero Damage (Primary)
  
• Hero Critical Damage(Primary)
  
• Hero Critical Chance (Secondary)
  
• Arcanist (Weapon/Trinket)
  
• Construction (On gloves)
  
• Footloose (On boots)

[/b]

The first is the NM4 Betsy staff I have; while not ideal for its rolls (you want a 4 per second one) it does have hero critical damage on it. This weapon has a HUGE Area of Effect on it's left click, so much so that the splash damage alone can hold a solo lane if you put a app in a hard physical lane. I've started to change to hero critical on this because the massive aoe is just too good to pass up on the left click, especially with 4 attack per second on it. The other reason this weapon is ridiculously good because it offers a PRECENTAGE damage reduction to mobs in the aoe curse aura it provides, which is huge on extreme endgame content for NM4. Just focus on the same gear as i listed above up a hero critical damage as the second primary roll on the main parts of gear. The reason you don't use ability power is because even with the giant aoe on the weapons spread, it only marks the initial target and not anything else hit, so it's extremely hard to get marks on. Focus on getting hero damage higher.

The second weapon is Armageddon, which drops from the Ramparts Incursion. This weapon is great for DPS for 2 reasons, it's a tight single target like spread, and it homes in on enemies (especially air which apps are notoriously bad at hitting most of the time with their spreads). For some reason, this weapons dps is extremely high, whether it's the tight spread with projectiles or it just has higher base values, it's the best single target damage staff in the game by far. For this i'd just focus on increasing as much hero damage as you can. It's special effect isn't terribly great unless you're running a full flamethrower apprentice with defense power, then it has some synergy since you can use your DPS app to just spam Arcane Volley with something like the betsy staff and not have to worry about marking targets. Same thing with this weapon, since you can only hit 1 mob at a time, trying to build up marks is extremely hard so opting for hero damage and hero critical damage seems more worthwhile in my opinion.

Sphere Setup: Hero Damage V, Hero Cricial Damage, Hero Critical Chance Small Spheres, Hero Critical Chance 5%, Anti-Air 20% Medium Spheres, Oiled Strikes Large Sphere and Apprentice Tornado Uber.

The Monk is a melee class who is versatile in the fact that his Right Mouse Button has a ranged element to it, and can be used on mobs while they're far away until you can get close enough to Left Mouse Button them all to death. The Monk is a very supportive builder, mainly looking to boost the stats and is very Area of Effect based; all of his aura's and traps having a huge radius of effect on the map when upgraded.

Monk, while I personally don't use it much, has probably the most balanced of sphere slots and variety in playstyle throughout the game rivalling the Huntress in available build possiblities. All of his large spheres can be used to help the heroes or towers in the game in a highly impactful way.

The Serenity Aura build focuses on getting as much range on the Serenity Aura as possible in order to maximize the effect of the Purge Evil Polearm, a legendary drop for the monk that makes any enemy that dies in the Serenity Aura explode dealing Area of Effect magic damage to all enemies in the radius around it, and if they're killed from that explosion they set off a chain reaction procing the same effect.

The monk's gear you should keep an eye out for are pieces that have:

• Defense Power (Primary)
  
• Defense Critical Damage (Primary)
  
• Karma Vortex (Secondary 15% karma vortex range)
  
• Radiance (3% aura radius on armor)
  
• Idle Flow (80% roll on trinket)
  
• Empower (10% boost aura trinket)

Sphere Setup: Boost Aura Range x3 (One Defense Power V optional), Monk Range Radius Increase X 2 Medium Spheres, Boost Blockade Health Aura Large Sphere OR Empowering Calm Serenity Large Sphere, Shielding Uber Sphere.

I decided to add this section in due to my forgetting of Shadowlach's webtool for building out the maps from a topdown view. This significantly helps people like me who sometimes don't get or see some of the placements of defenses on some of the maps and is a nice topdown view the same as your current in game map!

The link to the site is here, all credit to Shadowlach and the users who generated the maps/content there!

http://dd2.shadowlauch.de/

I'll be putting the exact map builds from these map builds down into my map setups below since any little bit helps!

So you've done it, you've beat the campaign, progressed through some difficulty and now you're trying to break that barrier into some of the more end game setups. Well, I'm going to be showing you how to farm end game maps in higher difficulties with these map setups! Liferoot Forest and Gates of Dragonfall are probably the 2 most common maps you'll be finding for farming, since they have a certain ease of setup and typically gives the best gear for entrance level for a new difficulty, and the highest ipwr gear for the ending level of the same difficulty.

I've included these screenshots to show you the setup I personally use to farm Liferoot. For this build you'll be needing: Blockade Squire, Traptress Huntress (Elemental Chaos Uber highly preferred but you can sub things in otherwise), Frostfire Apprentice, and either a Aura Monk or DPS Huntress in the last slot.

NOTE: I've altered the build a bit since posting originally, noticing most people starting the game only had the 4 hero slots available and will likely build 1 of every character, I've made it more accessable to using all those classes without the DPS hero.

https://dd2.shadowlauch.de/plan/60

The basic premise is to let the front subcore (The Quab) die and let the lanes merge. This will start to spawn air units on the second wave that your frost turrets will slow, freeze and then they'll subsequently shatter when hitting the ground. All lanes will get 3 traps in front of the blockade (5 traps on mid). then 4 traps where the ranged/burrower minions will be. With this, after your initial setup you'll be capped out on you build points and will just need to upgrade in the rounds after.

Upgrade order/priority should go as follows:

Blockades (the middle blockade in particular)
Traps on super ranged heavy lanes (Check the map for the large lane with "Shift")
Traps in front of blockades (trap in the middle, then the front two, then the one to the outermost side)
Traps elsewhere (small ranged attacker ones)

This is an edited version of my build with all credit to Zektiv for the video presentation of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2f5UEUFD-0

My friend Zektiv has done quite a few video guides for this map spanning from nm3 and up, along with his preferred setups on the map. Check out his map setup and commentary on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFhfu2GZFS0



These three frost towers space apart a little because the bombers on the map may very rarely get through and nuke them. The bottom right one is OUTSIDE the map (you'll see a handlebar railing, keep trying to place it until the edge of the tower placement sort of curves into the area).


The better view of the tower outside the handrailing to understand the placement.


The left side setup, 3 traps in front of blockade, one back a little further for ranged minions, 4 patterned to kill the burrowers/ranged. Serenity Aura to take advantage of the Purge Evil passive.


The arrangement of the frost towers on the right bushes, note that the first and last tower on this side is aimed down at the right lane, while the middle 2 are pointing towards your front blockade.


The trap layout for the forward most portion, the 2 traps in the middle will deal with any ranged attackers (Spear throwers, dragons), while the other front most trap deals with Shamans, the last one dealing with any burrowers.


Lane showing 6 traps to deal with all monsters coming from the lane, will catch any burrowers or ranged monsters as well.


An overhead view of setting up with the Quab still in the lane.


This shows the barricade placement (in line with the stump and the concrete wall), the 5 traps in front of it.


The last kind of hidden frost tower, just move the tower around until it rests on the vine.


A look at the last setup on the side, blockade placed just slightly to the right of the red mushrooms along with the traps/serenity aura placement.

ALTERNATIVE BUILD PATHS: Now if you're having trouble with the setup above, there are a few alternative setups you can use. Mainly substituting in a Monk Boost Aura with the Increased Blockade Health Large Sphere. This will give your Blockades a significant increase in hp (I show the disparity in the hp difference in the screenshots). I also have some anti air towers if you can't/don't have the freeze large sphere on your apprentice yet.


You can place two blockades in the larger choke point and then line the long convergance point of both lanes to more effectively spend your trap upgrades, keep in mind that the monsters will have a shorter travel time to your barricade and it can get somewhat harder if the burrowers/ranged get a chance to whack away on your barricade.


Alternative setup if you don't have freeze large sphere or the Air is dealing significant damage to your barricades before the freeze can take effect.


Alternate setup on the my mid variation with a boost aura, note that it is relatively cost effective with the number of traps around.

So for this setup you'll be needing:

• A blockade squire
  
• A trap huntress
  
• A frosty apprentice
  
• A DPS Huntress/Apprentice (personal preference to dps huntress)

My personal recommendations for gear for this content on NM4 as a baseline are as follows:

• 250K+ Walls minimum, 270K+ is a great range to start.
  
• 2.2K Explosive trap damage, 2.5K Elemental Chaos trap damage
  
• 40% frosty power, with around 3K Defense Power
  
• 15-17K Hero dmg Huntress, not quite sure about Apprentice but around the same

https://dd2.shadowlauch.de/plan/59

Here is a rough setup on the monkless setup I use that Zektiv has setup in the build video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXEGw8OqEc8

Now it's IMPORTANT TO NOTE quite a few things with this Incursion.

• The lane with the explosive kobolds WILL NOT GIVE YOU GREEN MANA. This lane I largely ignore unless it's right on top of the barricade with the multiple small range and melee mobs. But focus on healing this lane on wave 1 because it's going to be taking the brunt of the damage.
  
  
• On wave 4, air will spawn from either the left or the top of the map, if you dont' kill the flying kobolds, you WILL more than likely lose the game just from it hitting your crystal. So if you have a DPS character it's important to focus the air on wave 4.
  
  
• Any other wave, you'll want to upgrade your traps REACTIVELY to the lane. Hold down shift, look at what the most threatening lanes are (with priority to the 19 burrower and 19 dragon lanes) and upgrade the traps in front of blockades when the ogres will be coming down the wave.
  
  
• You're going to want to max your barricades first, then use the leftover mana to upgrade 1-2 traps a round.
  
  
• On wave 5, the lanes have a chance to RANDOMLY RE-ROLL THE RESISTANCES, so always check your traps and compare them to the current wave coming from the spawner. Depending on the lane effected you'll have to sell one lane or ALL of the traps and replace them with the correct damage traps in order to complete the map, since the mobs will have 75% resistance to the damage type you have in it.
  
  
• Just a note, if you're running a full team, a Squire is extremely useful for running out into the lane, grabbing mana, and dumping it back to the other dps characters to use for repair mana.

A full party of 4 people is needed to clear this map, you may be able to get away with 3 geared characters but I personally recommend 4 people.

Blockade Squire 250k+ HP for nm4
Frosty Apprentice 40%+ FP and 3K+ DP
Trap Hunter 2.5K elemental chaos traps preferred
DPS Huntress17K+ hero dmg OR DPS Apprentice 14K+

A double physical mid would probably be the best roll since huntresses can cover the right side a lot easier and faster than an apprentice would, but experiment with your group and find what best works for you with the gear you have.

Priority will be upgrading walls, then traps in front of them, but look at the wave for an excess of burrowers, if you see a lot of them, UPGRADE THOSE 2 TRAPS WHERE THEY BURROW. This will more often than not save the game.

Huntresses will need to rotate up to kill air in mid, especially with double waves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7ZVh5Rjydg

Coming Soon: Pictures/screenshots of build pages, map setups and gear farming for end game content. Map setup for Gates of Dragonfall (Incursion). Add a DPS Apprentice Guide


Change Log:

• (1.0) - Guide posted with classes, stat allocation, sphere and gear builds.
  
• (1.1) - Added a Leveling Section; includes level used, leveling spheres, and setup for the map.
  
• (1.2) - Added screenshots of my Stat Point Allocation per character build and what end game stats should probably look like.
  
• (1.3) - Added a few things to the Tavern Overview, forgot that nasty Scavenger.
  
• (1.4) - Added new info with the 35% exp increase from a level 50 from Vsdgkk.
  
• (1.5) - Added specific character leveling progression, what to focus on and explaination of content vs character leveling choices.
  
• (1.6) - Added in basic commands to repair, upgrade and sell in and out of combat.
  
• (1.7) - Added a full set of pet abilites from the official forums along with credit given.
  
• (1.8) - Added a set basic pre-lvl 50 setups for characters assuming the user would just be using the same character throughout progression.
  
• (1.9) - Added a full write up on Wyvern Tokens, including spending order for end game.
  
• (2.0) - Added a map setup on Liferoot Forest for Insane+ Difficulty.
  
• (2.1) - Added the correct values in the Optimal Gear Specs for high end gear.
  
• (2.2) - Added better screenshots of Liferoot Forest, as well as making alterations for people with only the 4 hero slots available playing 1 of each class. Additionally added some info about the unique legendaries needed for each build and what it rolls on.
  
• (2.3) - Added videos of Zektivs class and build setup guides to all the endgame setup sections!
  
• (2.4) - Added my Twitch channel to help gear up viewers and added the rest of Zektiv's class guides.
  
• (2.5) - Added a far more fleshed out leveling section, complete with exp gain/build timers done by A Regular Eevee/ScorpionKing0
  
• (2.6) - Added a Map Setup for Gates of Dragonfall Incursion along with videos showing the setup by Zektiv.
  
• (2.7) - Added a DPS Apprentice Guide, and will update with a Tank Squire setup as soon as I can get valid information or level one up soon!
  
• (2.8) - 12/19/2015 Added all the updated optimal gear spec sheet for the Harbinger update and loot v2.0 passives, edited all the end game character guides to reflect changes and will be adding new character builds in the coming weeks!
  
• (2.9) - 1/24/2016 Added in 2 new build guides, updated all sphere and SAS allocation slots, changed Squire for new Hearty Blockade passive.

Special Thanks:
Credit to Propensity and Rhino for the work on finding the soft caps for every character.
Credit to Vsdgkk for remembering the exp info for level 50 characters.
Credit to ModernWarBear for the idea to add the basic keyboard commands.
Credit to Sephy15 for the ideas on auto loot and pet abilites.
Credit to Pachipachio, Sublimital and Grim_Indeed for their extensive work on the pet abilites!
Credit to Masterrace for pointing out the lack of Shift detail, the confusion on freeze turret slow and the skill usage/priority of the DPS Huntress!
Credit to DKperfection for correcting my values on optimal gear rolls.
Credit to gtny for the small corection to the SAS points on the monk hero dmg.
Credit to Zektiv on noticing some of the gearing errors and for providing some awesome tutorial setup videos!
Credit to =T$E=ICanDerpz for pointing on the oversight of Poison Dart Towers for Anti Air for Huntress.
Credit to AjiBuster499 for pointing out the correct levels you get all the abilites and towers.
Credit to A Regular Eevee/ScorpionKing0 for all the work on the exp lists and build timers.

Special thanks to Trendy for bringing us an awesome game with continually improving content and customer service/feedback. To all the users on the forums who's info and build testing helped bring about a more concise guide and to all you new users out there that took the time to read this guide. Thank you all.