Tavern Defense NMHC Pure Strategy

Overview

Beating the Tavern Defense mission 10/10 times using only a Monk/Initiate, an EV and a Summoner.

Tavern Defense (Map)

DDPlanner[ddplanner.com]

Prerequisites

For this build you will need the following Heroes:

• A Monk or Initiate.
• An EV.
• A Summoner.

The estimated minimum stats for the different Heroes are:

• Monk/Initiate
  Roughly 500-700 Tower Health
  Roughly 2-2.5k Tower Damage
  Roughly 800-1k Tower Speed
  As much Aura Radius that you can get your hands on
• EV (Depending on the Monk/Initiate’s stats)
  As much Tower Damage as you can get your hands on. The Buffs are mainly for that extra boost. A strong Monk/Initiate allows for a weak EV, whereas a weak Monk/Initiate requires a well geared EV and possibly traps to compensate.
• Summoner
  The summoner is completely useless, except for attracting Spiders & Warriors. But as previously stated, a weak Monk/Initiate requires compensation from other Heroes. Make sure that your Summoner can take down Spiders and possible Warrior leaks.

The stats above are not tested. A better example:
Place down an electric aura inside your Tavern. Place down a Buff beam — and upgrade both to 3 stars.
Inspect the Electric aura and see if the damage exceeds 9k damage at 0.11sec or 7k at 0.09sec.
The latter requires inferno traps with roughly 3-4k damage.

The Summoner’s Archer should do 30-50k damage – health should not matter, but above 30k is a plus.
This will prevent Spiders from reaching the Minions during the first wave, when the aura near the Spider spawn is not yet upgraded. (Spider spawn near the Blue pip on the map)

Keep in mind that the numbers mentioned above have NOT been tested. Experiment with different tactics to suit your Heroes gear levels. If you have tested a specific setup that contradict the above mentioned numbers, please make a comment and I’ll update this Guide with new data.

For a tougher challenge, start on wave 10 or earlier waves. For a much easier and faster build, start on wave 15 or above. (Yes, starting on a “harder” wave, is actually easier).

Build Phase

If you started on wave 10 (Read Prerequisites), you will want to gather all the chests on the map before you start building – or have a friend do it for you.

If you started on wave 15, just grab one chest and place down electric and ensnare auras as show in the picture below:

It doesn’t really matter how you place the auras, as long as they are placed in that general area.
Make sure that the auras are close together so you can buff them with only one buff beam, they should be a few inches from touching eachother.

Once you have buffed all aura pairs and placed a buff beam in the middle as shown here…

… then you can go ahead and summon 4 Archers on Mid, alternatively 2 Archers and 2 Spiders.
The sole purpose for these are to lure in Spiders and Warriors, they do not need to be upgraded.
Again; if your Monk/Initiate and EV doesn’t cut it, you will have to put up more Minions and also upgrade them.

(All Buff Beams are 4 DU’s).

When you’ve placed down all the Auras, Buff Beams and the Minions — it should look something like this:

If you have any mana left, upgrade the Buff beams as much as you can – and start farming Experience.
If you started on wave 15, this would be a good time to tell your friends to open the chests and upgrade your Buff beams.

Make sure that you’ve got the bottom left, middle right and the auras around Spider Spawn – check Map – fully upgraded before wave 25, otherwise you might need to upgrade Minions and Auras on Mid afterall.

• Initiate:
  953 Tower Health
  3991 Tower Damage
  1425 Tower Radius
  2515 Tower Speed
• EV:
  1520 Tower Health
  3068 Tower Damage
  2015 Tower Speed
• Summoner:
  818 Tower Health
  3406 Tower Damage
  959 Tower Radius
  1132 Tower Speed

If you’re experiencing large leaks, i.e. mobs getting past your Ensnare auras, there are two things you can do:

• Get better gear.
• Compensate with traps and/or more minions around the main core. (DO NOT BUILD MINIONS OR POONS AROUND THE CORE INSIDE THE TAVERN)

Final Notes

If you were helped by this guide, please rate & leave a comment.
If you have suggestions and/or feedback, please send me a PM or write constructive comment.

Contributed Tips & Notes

Originally posted by pew pew pew:

Nice guide for farming XP meanwhile you are AFK as long as someone keeps repairing. The quicker way to level up would be play TD Campaign on NMHC with up to 48m per run. Can be done easily with 2k builder and DPS stats.

• Try to get most of the Buff beams (except Mid) up to level 3 before starting the first wave.
• Upgrade the Auras closest to the monster’s spawn point first. Upgrade the 2nd layer of auras instead of repairing, if you have the mana for it – otherwise, repair during intermissions.
• Starting at a higher wave count is easier than starting on, let’s say; wave 8 or 10, but starting on earlier waves will give you more experience.
• This mission is so much better with 3 other people accompanying you. Go AFK, drink some coffee while they do all the hard work. The exp is the same, but you’re AFK – enjoying life… Or Youtube videos. You lazy bugger! =)
• This mission is not for farming items and gives you less experience than King’s Game Campaign.
• The lower left lane – as seen on the Map – gives the most mana at the end of each wave. The middle right gives the most mana during the wave. Use this to your advantage – move to the lower left lane when around 5% of the wave remains.
• Use the Secret room to AFK, not the Hero Box – trying to drop mana for your other Hero and having an AFK person pick it up is annoying.
• Each wave will give you around 2m experience after wave 15. Use this to calculate which mission is more rewarding for the amount of time it takes to complete it with your Heroes.

Have fun and good luck with this great- and endlessly boring source of experience.