Atherial’s Minionless NMHC Tinkers Lab Build

Overview

This is a build that i created after seeing a build for akatiki jungle that pew pew pew built. The build is based off the etherial spike trap that was recently buffed. It was a fairly easy build to operate and i would have to say was the smoothest run of NMHC tinkers that i have ever done. The build does not use minions and only requires the EV, Monk, and Huntress to place the defenses.

Introduction

This is a build that i created after testing another build made by pew pew pew that build being a akatiki build using only traps beams and auras. so after seeing that build in action i moved over to trying to get the same thing to work on tinkers lab to great effect. The build works mainly around the recent buff in patch 8.2 on the etherial spike trap.

I thought tinkers lab would be a good map to create a build on due to the possiblity of them fixing the overscaling issue on blaster rifles that makes them better to be farmed on insane. In the coming patches it may be more effective to run tinkers lab on NMHC for the all so hunted for blaster rifle.

Please note this build is not for survival and will most likely get completely ran over on survival. this is a pure campaign build. I have also not tested placement of traps on insane though i feel that if you keep the same general concept and make the traps fit in the same general places you will see great effectiveness.

The Build Overview

In my first attempt at testing this build i used characters with the following stats

• 4.2k Auras
• 4k Traps
• 4k Beams

I feel that the trap damage was a little overkill at 4k and due to how smooth the map ran at 4k stats i feel that it could be done at 3k or even 2k if you are on top of boosting and upgrading. The nice thing is that you don’t have minions to upgrade making this build far faster to upgrade so you can get to dps and or boosting. Also due to the terrible scaling on buff beams the stats on them are not very important you can get away with 2k easy.

Here i will point out all the towers used in this build and their general role in making this build function.

• Strength Drain Auras: These are used in the common aura stack and is to help with resistance and making ogres deal less damage.
• Electric Auras: This is to deal with all of the small non ogre monsters that try to attack the crystal and most importantly wyverns.
• Ensnare Auras: This is to slow monsters down allowing your traps to hit them mosre times before they reach the physical beams.
• Physical Walls: These are to stop ogre pathing and keep them from walking right onto the crystal and killing it.
• Buff Beams: This is to make your other towers more effective and to enhance the area of effect for thing like auras and traps.
• Gas Traps: These keep sharkens off your walls and that is really their only goal. other than making it easy to mana swirl during the early waves.
• Proximity MInes: These are to help with mob density. there is only one in the build and it is the least important trap to place. in a varient i will talk about at the end this trap is removed for another gas trap.
• Etherial Spike Traps: The msot important trap in the build. these kill your ogres and really destroy everything that steps on them. doing over 1,300,000 damage per discharge when on a 4k huntress not much makes it past these. Also with the recent change to base detonations they have become far more durable and tend to not be destroyed even with a decent 1.5k in tower health. Though 2k or 3k is ideal.

This crystal consists of a 5 DU physical wall across the front near the forge and a 2 DU and 3 DU physical beam across the top section. The 2 DU and a 3 DU over lap making a small gap near the stairs. From that place start a buff beam so that it hits both walls and travel it along to the 5 DU physical wall. this buff beam should be a total of 5 DU. There is a aura stack in the area between the 2 stairs. The traps used in this area are 2 etherial spike traps placed at the 2 far ends of the beam and a gas trap placed along the center of the beam. Note this is the crystal taht we will be making alterations to in the variation of this build.

This is the west crystal it consist of 2x 2 DU physical walls connected by a 5 DU buff beam. the traps used beside the full aura stack is 1 gas trap and 1 etherial spike trap with the gas trap being slightly farther back than the spike trap.

This crystal consists of 2 areas the first being the left side of it. the left side has a 2 DU physical wall connected to a 5 DU physical wall by a 5 DU buff beam. At this area you place the gas trap and etherial spike trap directly on top of the railing so that it lands on the beam covering both walls.There is also a basic aura stack at this crystal as well. The second area is a 4 DU buff beam and a 2 DU physical beam to stop the ogres that get dropped off there by copters. There is also a etherial spike trap here to deal with orges once they are dropped off.

This is a crystal consist of a pair of 2 DU physical walls both buffed by 2 4D buff beams that travel outwards from the wall. plcaed on those are each a stack of gas trap and etherial spike traps slightly overlapped so taht the spike trap is farther forwards then the gas. This is also covered in yet another aura stack.

So that is the base build i have found one issue when you have “low” aura and trap radius at the center crystal so i have created a small change to the build for lower stat characters. the build will finish wave a bit slower but will hold up at the center crystal.

Alteration for Low Radius

Here is a change for people that have low radius and to be honest i think anyone without 3k+ in radius should use this instead at the center crystal. in this example al beams are the same but there is a a gas trap at the lower end of the beam along with the etherial spike trap. And at the upper part of the beam there is a -2 gas trap (-2 means you click – on your keyboard 2 times to lower the size of the trap). This makes it so that sharkens are unable to hit the 5DU wall. in order to get the extra DU for the gas trap you will remove the proximity mine trap from the top area. This will make the mobs move slower but will result in the second crystal being far safer during later waves.

Uprading The Build

In the combat phase of this build you need to upgrade focus on the beams first to get your radius up then move from crystal to crystal. your main focus should be on the crystals in this order.

• Center Crystal
• North Crystal
• Lower Right Crystal
• West Crystal

Note that this does not mean to only focus on 1 crystal expecially at low stats you need to spash upgrades everywhere during the wave to make sure one place does not get destroyed since you left it alone.

Conclusion

Thank you for reaching the end of this guide hope that you found it useful. This guide was made in patch 8.2.1 and i will try and update it for the newer patches but if they do end up nerfing the eherial spike traps this build will no longer function properly and may need a total rework. If you have any questions feel free to send me a message in steam. So i have been atherial sharing my minionless NMHC tinkers lab etherial spike trap build.

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Have a good day