Endgame Progression

Overview

Everything you need to know to progress from level 70 to 100.

Introduction

This guide is slightly outdated as of July 2018 with CDT 4. The weapons and pets sections are incomplete and lack the new content. I still recommend reading the guide since a majority of the information is still accurate. I don’t plan to update the guide any time soon, so if you want to learn about the new content then visit the main forum[forums.dungeondefenders.com].

This guide is intended for people who need help progressing through Nightmare as fast as possible and without cheating. If you are already at endgame and just need a list of places to farm then I recommend this list. I assume you have the full game with all DLCs unlocked, but if you don’t then you might have issues following this guide. I don’t claim to know it all so please feel free to respond if you disagree with something.

The major grinds in this game are levels, armor, rewards, and achievements. Lab Assault Insane Hardcore is the easiest way to get gear and Tavern Defense Nightmare Pure Strategy is the easiest way to level up. Once you get better gear there are better places to farm, but these levels will get you started. You should have 6 or more heroes over level 90 with over 2k in each stat by the end of this process. If you’re efficient then it can take you less than a week to reach the endgame.

Tips

• You can stack minions. Phase Shift and summon units without moving your mouse. Place spiders first because you can always stack on top of them.
• You can stack towers[dungeondefenders.wikia.com] as the host of a game by pressing the hotkey and spacebar simultaneously. To make this easier you can use my . The macro also works for stacking minions.
• Hardcore mode drops much better loot (around 50% better).
• Survivals drop Super Loot[dungeondefenders.wikia.com] past wave 9.
• Nightmare Hardcore Survival Mix Mode (1)[dungeondefenders.wikia.com] drops the best loot. The major exception to this is Moonbase which gives slightly better loot on without mix mode.
• Copter Ogres can’t damage the crystal.
• You can use the Portal Gun to teleport behind invisible walls in order to loot unreachable items (unconfirmed).
• You can place auras/traps closer together by temporarily taking off your gear. This is usually better than reducing the radius.
• You can move traps on top of crystals using Jester’s Move Tower ability if she has no Defense AoE (1).
• Sky City’s Goblin Battlecruiser can be defeated safely on hardcore with an exploit (1).
• Accessories cost a ton to upgrade. Don’t upgrade them too much or they will eat your mana.
• Loot scales with the number of players up to 4 players: 1x, 1.75x, 2.25x, 3.25x. You don’t get more loot with more than 4 players. The maximum number of items on the ground scales the same way: 40, 70, 90, 130 (55-178 on Akatiti) (1).
• You can walk through the doors with OPEN sign in your Tavern once you have completed certain achievements. Other players can’t enter these areas, so they are safe places to drop items.
• You can drop up to 180 items on the Tavern floor (1).
• Mana doesn’t disappear if you forget to drop it (M key) before changing heroes. You can get it by switching back to the hero.
• Adding heroes just before the end of a wave will get you more rewards with fewer enemies unless it’s the final wave. This works for Seahorse, Propeller Cat, Cowboy Monkey, Parrot, etc (1).
• You can test items by exporting your account to Open mode and upgrading there.
• You can test DPS on Tavern Dummies. For example, you can test that there’s a 33% defense damage bonus for having your builder in the game. You can also test pet range/damage, Wheel o’ Fortuna, Guardian pet bonuses, stat caps, etc.
• You can min-max your tower DPS by respecing and seeing if more attack rate or damage gives you more DPS.
• Walls that face backwards can catch enemies like a net and will not be attacked if enemies have aggro from other defenses.
• If a Lab Assault host only brings Huntresses/Rangers then other players/accounts will get 80% more armor/pets (1)[forums.dungeondefenders.com]. The host gets no benefit from this. This is useful if you play on multiple accounts or buy/sell Lab Assault runs.
• A splitscreen Monk with a Genie can sustain boost if you hold down ranged attack (1). This works when using a gamepad or Plane’s emulator.
• Read the Beginner’s Guide[dungeondefenders.wikia.com] on the wiki if you haven’t done so. The rest of the tips come from there.
• Staves constantly fire if you hold down both buttons. Charged can be performed by holding one of the buttons and tap with the other button. Charged attacks deal more DPS but if your charge rate is over 90 then you will probably overcharge and lose DPS.
• Press L to toggle locking items in your stash because it’s faster than using the menu button.
• You can swap heroes in the selection menu by holding ALT.
• Movement Speed caps at 100. See the stat graphs[dungeondefenders.wikia.com] for reference. The only way to move faster is with special items.
• Hold SHIFT or CTRL while investing stats to upgrade faster in Pro-mode. This is usually a bad idea for DPS weapons/armor.

4 Heroes

You can use up to 4 heroes simultaneously from the same account (split screen). Doing so will save you a lot of time because you will earn you 4x the rewards and up to 11x the exp. More enemies spawn with more heroes, which means more exp per hero per wave. The safest way to do this is to plug in a gamepad and then press the start button when you’re in game. XBox controllers will work automatically, but PS3 controllers will need a DS3 XInput driver to work properly. I recommend using BetterDS3 or the SCP Drivers[github.com]. I don’t recommend MotioninJoy because it’s malware.

Emulators are another way to play with more heroes. This is software that simulates a gamepad using other input devices (keyboard, mouse, or joysticks). There are two kinds of emulators which can be downloaded from plane’s post[forums.dungeondefenders.com] (Windows 10), wat’s post (Windows 7), or Acen’s guide (splitscreen section). These links include details on editing keybinds and other customization. Wat’s emulator is easier to use but Plane’s allows you to play multiple heroes simultaneously. My custom UDKInput.ini for wat’s emulator can be downloaded here[pastebin.com]. It sets M to drop mana and G to activate crystal. Other config files and download links can be found here. You can also try using AntiMicro, JoyToKey, Xpadder, etc.

Gear Farming

Farming using only Summoners will prevent weapons from dropping, which are mostly useless at high level. You also get a 33% damage boost to defenses of heroes that are in the game, so make sure one of those is your main Summoner. Use Phase Shift to prevent enemies from attacking you and repair or Flash Heal as needed. The idle Summoners may need Guardian Pets, Fairies, or an Imp with resists/DPS armor in order to survive. Difficult content will require a Boost Monk, Jester, or EV for DPS.

Colored dots on the map indicate different quality items. Set the Minimum Displayed Item Quality at the bottom of the options menu to remove useless dots. Don’t rely on the thumbs up/down system because it’s really inaccurate. Transcendent+ items have a glowing beam above them and are easier to spot than other items. If you don’t see the beams then press B to enable them. You can press O to hide spawners on the map and P to hide defenses so that they don’t hide the dots. You can also change Tower Upgrades Displayed to remove the upgrade symbols from the map. I recommend picking up every Transcendent+ piece between waves and dealing with them later. Alternatively, you can look at items in Overlord mode during the wave and figure out which ones you want to keep.

Level the Monk to 70 and Squire to 74. You will need Monk Auras for all Nightmare levels to survive. The best way to level up without Mythic armor is Glitterhelm Caverns, but you can do this on a different Insane level if you want. These heroes should have full Godly armor of a single type (leather, mail, etc) for the set bonus (blue glow) before attempting Nightmare.

Please note that being carried is optional. You can join Nightmare Survivals or Insane/Nightmare Lab Assaults in order to loot Mythics. If you join a Lab Assault then please do not try to help because this will make things harder. If you choose to be carried then skip to step 4 once you have some decent Mythic gear. If you prefer to do things the hard way then continue to step 2.

Only do the first wave. One Ogre will spawn during the wave so you will have to repair/upgrade to beat it. After the first wave you should quickly loot all chests for Mythics and then restart the level. The Mythics should have between -50 and 50 to each stat and 50-100 upgrades. You may need to respec if you didn’t level up into builder stats. Make sure and stay on your main builder during the wave for the damage bonus. Use Harpoons, Auras, and reverse facing Walls to block the ogre. If this level gives you trouble then try placing Series EV Buff Beams at each choke point and connect it to your towers and auras. EV doesn’t need to be leveled very much or have good gear to be powerful. If you still have trouble then try placing Huntress Gas Traps inside Strength Drain auras to stun Sharken and other weak enemies.

After wave 15 the chests should start giving you Mythics with between -100 and 100 to each stat and around 100-150 upgrades. By wave 20 you should start seeing them drop regularly from enemies. You might need to level up a Summoner and Series EV to help with this map. If you only have Summoners out during the waves then you will only get armor, which is the only thing you need. You may want to farm this map with only one hero, as it can be somewhat difficult. Pick up everything with a blue Mythical circle under it between waves (B to enable).

If you don’t like the idea of fast progression from running Lab Assault, then continue running progressively harder NMHCMM Survivals. Mistymire is the easiest of the high end maps. Try to at least get past wave 15, and start from later waves to save time. Skip to step 6 for more details.

This rewards you with a BF Drill which is needed to farm Lab Assault for endgame items. This weapon only drops for the Huntress/Ranger, so make sure you bring these heroes before the final wave (see 4 Heroes section). You can beat this stage by building Squire Harpoons around the moving core and then selling and rebuilding them or using a Jester to move them. If you get a bad roll on the drill then you can run Lab Assault on Insane mode.

This is the easiest way to gear up without trading or being carried. You get accessories, pets, armor, and weapons and you can get anything from Godly to Ult++ gear on Nightmare. You will receive 36 items (9 per hero) every 3-6 minutes by doing this run. The armor stats will range from -329 to 329. You will also make billions of mana from selling excess gear which will allow you to upgrade what you’re wearing. Make sure to check out the Gear Filtering section for how to handle all of this loot. Insane mode is a little faster and easier but the item stats will be slightly worse.

Note that the bosses will get stuck on the railings or fall under the platforms. You can get them unstuck by firing at them and moving around. They will sometimes be permanently stuck under pressure plates and look like they’re floating. If this happens then you will either have to kill them or restart the level. There’s also a spot they can fall and become unkillable, and I’ve even seen them get stuck in the darkness at their spawn point. A lot of this depends where you’re standing and luck, so experiment with different strategies in the second phase to see what works best for you.

Once you have a good set of gear from Lab Assault then you can farm NMHC Survival Mix Mode for Transcendent+ armor. Survivals require little effort and attention but they’re very time consuming. Mix Mode usually is harder than Survival and tends to give better loot. The initial stats on armor cap out at 329 around wave 25 and Ult pieces can have over 400 upgrades for a total of 1700+ stats per piece of armor. This is better than Lab Assault which rarely gives armor over 1200 stats. Lab Assault is a good farming location for accessories and pets, but Survival Mix Mode is better for armor.

Moonbase[dundefplanner.com] NMHC (Mix Mode is slightly worse) is the best place to farm armor but it’s difficult. King’s Game[dundefplanner.com] is one of the easiest levels with good armor if you can’t handle Moonbase. Alternatively, you can farm levels that give top tier pet rewards like Aquanos, Sky City, Tavern Defense, and Tinkerer’s Lab. Make sure to bring Summoners for more armor and rewards if you can handle it.

The best places to farm for accessories are Winter Wonderland, Temple O’ Love, Greater Turkey Hunt 2, and Embermount Volcano[dundefplanner.com]. Pirate Invasion[dundefplanner.com] is also a good place to farm for masks if you can make it past wave 12. These areas can drop Supreme accessories which can have over 300 per stat. Embermount and Temple O’ Love can also drop Ult accessories.

Some accessory sets give you cosmetic effects. Embermount set gives a fire trail, Crystalline Dimension set gives crystals and a blue trail, Temple O’ Love set gives blue/pink hearts, and the Palantir[dundefplanner.com] set you glowing angel wings.

See the sections below for these.

Gear Stats

Always wear a full set of the same armor type (Leather, Mail, etc). Wearing a full set causes it to glow blue and gives a bonus of 25-40% more stats. Higher tier pieces give a bigger stat bonus, so you should try to wear Ult pieces over Mythics. Keep at least one DPS and Builder set for each armor type.

Note: This table does not include overcap stats. Items can drop with slightly higher stats than the cap but they cannot be upgraded further. I’ve never seen any item with over 500 upgrades, but https://images.dungeondefenders.com/https://images.dungeondefenders.com/https://images.dungeondefenders.com/https://images.dungeondefenders.com/https://i.imgur.com/dUzwAHA.jpg[images.dungeondefenders.com].

Focus everything into DPS or Builder stats. Don’t make hybrid items or heroes because it just reduces their effectiveness. When comparing armor, you should add up the total DPS or Builder stats to compare them (health+damage+range+speed+upgrades). Damage and health should be prioritized over other stats when comparing. Don’t add movement speed because it caps at 100. DPS gear needs hero skills and a high amount of upgrades for resistances. Each piece of DPS gear needs at least 100 upgrades to softcap resistances and 280+ to hard cap.

Once you’ve farmed long enough and have some Ult pieces you may want to use a spreadsheet to analyze your sets. This has helped me determine the best sets to equip on certain heroes. It has also helped me figure out which pieces of armor I need and the minimum stats to keep. You will need to make a copy of the spreadsheets in order to work with them.

Spreadsheets: Builders[docs.google.com], DPS[docs.google.com], Armor Sets[docs.google.com]
Calculators/Formulas: Tower DPS[dungeondefenders.com], Tower DPS, Hero DPS[codepen.io], Resistances[forums.dungeondefenders.com], Resistances[ddfrbr.com], old formulas[dungeondefenders.wikia.com]

Gear Upgrading

DPS armor upgrades should be invested into Resistances before Damage or Ability 2. Most heroes get more out of Damage but support heroes like Genie/Wheel Jester and Hero Boost Monk benefit more out of Ability 2. I personally upgrade damage on all DPS gear and respec heroes for other stats.

Upgrade your highest resistance as fast as possible in order to reach the resistance soft cap (23% without the set bonus). Always upgrade soft capped resistances before anything else (every 10 levels). Once all resistances are soft capped you should upgrade one resistance at a time until it increases by 2 from the set bonus. Prioritize Generic over the other resistances up to a maximum of 41% with the set bonus. There is a 90% hard cap for resistances which is obtainable with 41% resistance including the set bonus on 4 pieces of armor. See this guide for more details.

Builder upgrades depend on the hero. I recommend favoring Health over Damage on Summoner and Series EV. This is because Physical Walls and minions are the only defenses that should get hit, so the more health they have the less likely you are to lose. For other heroes I recommend investing into Damage and Attack Rate. However, Summoner attack rate still has breakpoints, so I don’t recommend upgrading attack rate on the Summoner. Respec your builders to see which of these stats gives you more DPS before you upgrade. As a rule of thumb you should keep Damage and Attack Rate relatively equal. This is due to diminishing returns and a recent patch that fixed attack rate so that it doesn’t depend on your computer speed. Specifically, I gained 10% DPS by changing 5000 damage and 3000 attack rate to 4000 of each.

Gear Filtering

Sell Godly Armor because it doesn’t share the set bonus with Mythical+. Godly Accessories can be kept. Sell Weapons except Mythical Builder ones that you will use early on. These are trash compared to the ones listed later in the guide.

Create a DPS and Builder folder in both the stash and shop. Make subfolders within the shop for Pets, Accessories, and Armor. Now make subfolders for each Armor type (Leather/Mail/etc) and Accessory type (Hat/Wrist/etc). I recommend adding additional folders to each of these based on the sum of stats and upgrades. For example, my accessories are sorted into folders “over 700”, 600, 500. My armor has folders for “over 1200,” 1100, 1000, 800. I have since removed the lowest folders as I’ve gained better gear and sold these items.

When you’ve finished farming you should start by organizing items in the stash into the DPS and Builder folders and sell the leftovers. Next, move these items into your store one folder at a time and sort them. When you’ve done this enough times you can look in these folders for upgrades.

Sell almost all of the gear that you find while farming. It’s better to be picky than deal with too many choices. Drag everything worth over 1 million crystals (M by sell value) into a folder. Note that you will have to unequip a piece of armor when comparing due to set bonuses.

• Pets with 1200+ total Builder or DPS stats.
• Armor with 600+ total Builder or DPS stats.
  DPS Armor needs 100+ upgrades to soft cap resistances.
• Accessories with 400+ total stats NOT including upgrades.

• Pets with 1500+ total stats including upgrades.
  Dragons with lots of upgrades are the best for DPS heroes.
• Armor with 1000+ total stats including upgrades.
  DPS Armor needs 280+ upgrades to reach the resistance cap on Nightmare.
  Each piece needs at least 41% for each resistance (30-33% before the set bonus).
• Accessories with 600+ total stats NOT including upgrades.

EXP Farming

Consider farming top tier rewards while farming levels. You will still gain a lot of experience from easier levels and better gear will help you progress faster. Save time when farming rewards by starting from later waves. You must start at least 2 waves before a reward to receive it. See the Best Pets/Weapons sections for a list of useful rewards.

• Tavern Service – XP Bonus
  Can be used every level to get 10% instant XP (30% before level 70).
• Glitterhelm Caverns Insane HC
  A good way to level alts to 74 if you don’t have high tier Mythics.
• Tavern Defense NM Pure Strategy (790k per wave solo, 2200k per wave 4x splitscreen)
  The easiest way to level up without other players. Easier than it should be since ogres are bugged and don’t spawn. Guardian pets can make it even easier.
• Temple of Water Nightmare HC (6270k per wave solo, staff/sword rewards)

• Akatiti Jungle Insane HC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz37tlv3JE8
  Obsidian weapon rewards.
  Turtle on Treadmill secret pet reward.
• Tinkerer’s Lab Insane HC
  Blaster Rifle reward.
• Moonbase Nightmare HC (694k per wave solo)
  Fusion Rift, Hyper Rifle, Quietus rewards.
  Treadmill/Fish in a Bowl secret pet reward. (4)

Best Heroes

There are 12 hero classes, but you don’t need to level them all. Start by limiting yourself to a single page of 8 heroes. You should have one of each of the 6 builders and 2 DPS. Eventually you should make another DPS for boss killing. Males generally have more health and damage while females have more movement speed. I recommend making the females Builders and males DPS. However, costumes create exceptions to this rule. Specifically, the Squire/Huntress are viable as both DPS and Builder.

Costumes can give you movement speed, damage, health, or flying. These bonuses come at the cost of movement speed or health.

* means anything not listed in the other columns.
Unlisted heroes do not get any benefits from costumes.
(1)[forums.dungeondefenders.com], (2)[dungeondefenders.wikia.com], (3)[dungeondefenders.wikia.com], (4).

The fastest heroes make the best builders. These include the Initiate, Huntress, Squire/Countess, and Adept. You should have one of each of the 6 builders including Summoner and Series EV because they’re all useful. Jester can be a builder too, but I don’t think she’s that useful as one.

and DPS comparison spreadsheet[docs.google.com]
The two best solo DPS are the Jester and Monk because of their support abilities (1). Boost Monks can simultaneously multiply the damage of nearby towers/heroes/pets up to 3.5x and slowly heal/repair them. He is the best choice for pushing difficult content, killing bosses, and small confined levels.

Jester has the fastest cast speed of all heroes (upgrades/repairs) and can use Wheel o’ Fortuna (2) which can do one the following:

• Damage All Enemies: deals up to 50% damage to all enemies maximum health (except bosses).
• Heal Allies: heals and repairs all towers/players for 75% of their maximum health.
• Debuff Enemies: increases the damage enemies take by 50% and reduces the damage they deal by 50% (except bosses). This lasts 15+ seconds.
• Buff Players: increases damage of heroes by 25% and reduces their damage taken by 50%. This is much worse than Debuff Enemies because it doesn’t buff towers and doesn’t stack with the Propeller Cat.
• Kill % Enemies: instantly kills a small number of enemies. It seems to kill enemies starting with the type that’s closest to you. This is best used at the end of the wave to kill stuck enemies.

The Jester is the best choice for upgrading towers and speed clearing, especially when you use two or more to instantly kill all enemies. Damaging all enemies can draw attention from Ogres, so it’s sometimes better to use Debuff All Enemies if you don’t want ogres to come to your location. The Jester does the most single target damage with staves. Guns are still better for area damage but the Huntress/Ranger deal up to 70% more with them with costumes.

Nightmare bosses can have over 1 billion health in 4 player mode. If you cannot split screen a boss (e.g. Old One) then best choice is the Monk with a Mega Chicken which deals over 30 million DPS. If you can splitscreen then the best choice is Series EV with Proton Charge Blast, an Ember Sceptre, a Boost Monk, and a Propeller Cat. This is capable of dealing 240 million DPS because Ember Sceptre gets 5x the DPS with Proton Charge compared to other weapons. In order to maximize the DPS of this ability she needs between 2000 and 3000 Skill Ability with the rest of her stats devoted into Hero Damage. See this guide for full details on how to build her. To use this ability you should charge it up, drop your mana, collect mana until you’re full, and then deactivate it until you’re ready to use it.

Barbarian is also a decent boss killer because his Hawk Stance can deal over 100 million damage every 4 seconds with 2 seconds of normal attacks between (2). Barbarian is on par with a solo Monk but he’s better if you already have a Monk. He’s a strong choice on certain bosses with phases like the Old One and Sky City’s Goblin Battlecruiser.

Ranger/Huntress are capable of doing over 9 million DPS which is a fair amount more than other ranged heroes. Ranger can cloak towers and allies but it makes them lose aggro and it costs a lot more mana than Huntress’s cloak. Ranger’s cloak is also bugged and will uncloak a cloaked Huntress. Ranger’s Piercing Shot does more DPS than the Huntress, but only at close range. Both are strong choices against flying bosses such as Mega Cupid and Phoenix where you don’t get mana for Proton Charge Blast, but Series EV will outperform them most of the time.

Apprentice does a fair amount of damage with Mana Bomb but he is strictly worse than the Jester. He has too little health to be a DPS hero and Mana Bomb has a 30 second cooldown.

Squire moves very fast and does a fair amount of damage with Blood Rage, but the only thing that makes him special is his ability to block which makes him the only tank class. Countess makes a better pure tank than Squire with her Call to Arms ability, but neither hero has much use at endgame.

Defense Builds

DunDefPlanner[dundefplanner.com] is a good website with a list of builds, videos, and details. You can also use pew pew pew’s guide or wat’s guide for Nightmare builds with lower stats.

Building a defense should revolve around choke points. Most of the time your choke points will be near each crystal. This is because there are generally fewer crystals than spawners so there’s less places to defend and more space to build. However, if you’re making a speed build then you should place your defenses at the spawners.

Monk and Huntress defenses are best for crowd control, killing weaker enemies, and removing elemental immunity. Squire and Apprentice defenses are better at killing heavy targets and hitting enemies far away. A strong defense will always include Series EV and Summoner to achieve over double the power.

An example of a build can be seen in the image below. Start by stacking Monk Auras (Lightning, Ensnare, and Strength Drain) around your choke points. One Healing Aura can also be helpful on certain maps and bosses. Manually reduce the radius of your auras or temporarily unequip your hero if the auras are too big. Now place Series EV Buff Beams at each choke point. Always try to connect your defenses to the buff beams because they make everything twice as strong. They reduce the damage buffed defenses take as well as increase attack speed, range, and damage. Check the Buff Beam details to make sure all of your defenses are being buffed. Use Physical Walls to block enemies unless your defenses are strong enough to take the hits. Reflective Walls should be placed in front of your defenses or crystals to protect them from ranged attacks and spiders. Reflective Walls don’t need to be attached to the buff beams.

Summoner minions are good because they can fire in all directions and you can efficiently pack them together on Buff Beams. They also act as the best endgame wall because they don’t get charged by Sharken and you don’t need to repair them since Mages can heal them. An ideal minion setup includes Archers, a couple Mages, and a Spider. Mages and Spiders are very weak so it’s often better to place them behind the archers. Mage healing range is the maximum length of a 5 DU Buff Beam, so use this as a measuring tool.

Place Huntress Traps for more area damage and crowd control. Gas Traps are the most useful because they stunlock most enemies including Djinn and Sharken. Don’t upgrade traps too much if they’re undefended because the Djinn will attack them. Proximity Traps are usually the best choice if you need more area damage and Lightning Auras aren’t enough. Inferno Traps deal half as much damage as Proximity Traps but they require the least repairs and are better for AFK builds. Ethereal Traps deal twice as much damage as Proximity Traps but they only hit one target at a time. If you have spare DU then place Apprentice or Squire towers for long range and piercing and add Buff Beams to them. Lightning Towers and Harpoons are the best towers for endgame builds because their range prevents them from taking much damage.

Before starting the wave, switch to a Jester with a Genie pet and Lupine Bow in order to quickly upgrade your defenses during the first few waves. Sometimes the chests do not give enough mana to place all of your defenses in the first round, so you may have to start from a higher wave or finish building between rounds. Once everything is fully upgraded you should switch to a Summoner for more Armor drops or a Boost Monk for more difficult content.

Event Items

The Community Development Team hosts events 2-3 times a year. These are posted one week in advance on the General Discussions Forum[forums.dungeondefenders.com] and last 2-3 days. You can participate in these events by being invited to the Community Events Group and clicking “join chat room” during the event time and asking for a group. Participating in these events will award you with at least one of multiple rewards. If you complete the map then you might be receive all of the rewards. You can only receive one set of items per event. See the Official Events Guide for full details in how to participate in these events.

Previous Event items[forums.dungeondefenders.com] are impossible to obtain unless you trade for them. Giveaways happen on the official forums fairly often, so if you want past event items then that’s probably your best bet. Some of the original event items are listed below.

Glacier’s Demise[img1.wikia.nocookie.net] (Sword)
The RainMaker[img1.wikia.nocookie.net] (Staff)
Rockshatter[img4.wikia.nocookie.net] (Gun)
Celebration[dungeondefenders.wikia.com] (Head Accessory)
Magicite[dungeondefenders.wikia.com] (Diamond pet)
Mana Master[dungeondefenders.wikia.com] (Genie pet)

Best Weapons

An ideal DPS weapon should be Ult with 370+ upgrades and good base stats from the list below. I recommend farming on Insane HC for some of these weapons because the stats are close to Nightmare drops while being much easier to obtain. See Acen’s guide (Gearing Up – Weapons) section to determine if a weapon is worth farming on Insane HC.

The best builder weapons depend only on the base stats. Most weapons have up to 450 per stat but certain weapons have up to 650 per stat such as those from Akatiti/Embermount. Temple of Polybius weapons can drop with over 700 per stat (unconfirmed). Some weapons are much easier to farm than others. The * means my recommended farm choice.

Make sure your staves have 60-90 charge rate for higher DPS. Be careful not to upgrade it too much or it will hurt your DPS.

1. Ember Sceptre (Embermount Volcano NM, Apprentice specific)
   DPS/Builder. Fires a single projectile in a straight line. Best weapon for EV Proton Blast (5x damage). Hard to farm.
2. * Elder Staff (Temple of Water, random reward)
   DPS. Fires 3 projectiles in a narrow triangle. Easy to farm.
3. * Fusion Rift (Moonbase, Apprentice specific)
   DPS/Builder. High DPS staff, but has a very wide spread. Easy to farm.
4. * Obsidian Clava (Akatiti Jungle, random reward)
   DPS/Builder.
5. Bloodshot/Bone Staff (Moraggo Desert Town NM Survival, enemy drop)
   DPS. Fires up to 6 projectiles in a straight line. Level the elemental damage for the highest DPS. Suffers from immunities due to elemental damage. Drops with up to 500 in each stat.
6. Classic’s Eagle Crested Standard (Boss Rush Challenge Insane+)
   DPS. Fires projectiles in a straight line.

Make sure your guns have over 15k projectile speed and maximum additional projectiles.

1. Kraken Kannon (Temple of Polybius, random reward)
   Builder. Extremely difficult to farm.
2. * Blaster Rifle (Tinkerer’s Lab)
   DPS. Gives 10% movement speed. Gun with the fastest attack rate. Pierces all enemies. Easy to farm.
3. Ember Flame (Embermount Volcano NM, Huntress specific)
   DPS/Builder. Nerfed as of CDT 4. A flamethrower with the highest DPS out of all guns. The problem is it only does fire damage and has short range. Hard to farm.
4. Eternian Energy Cannon (Old One, Crystalline Dimension NM, Huntress specific)
   DPS. High stats and damage with piercing. Hard to farm, especially on hardcore.
5. * Hyper Rifle (Moonbase, Huntress specific)
   Builder. Easy to farm.
6. * Moby’s Mobile Launcher (Buccaneer Bay, random reward)
   Builder. Easy to farm.
7. Pawn Shot (King’s Game, Huntress specific)
   Builder. Fast grenade launcher that deals physical damage and explodes on impact. Easy to farm.

1. Mischief Maker (Temple of Polybius, random reward)
   DPS/Builder. Gives 10% movement speed. Shoots a lingering blue flame that burns enemies as they walk over it. Extremely difficult to farm.
2. Eternian Spear (Old One, Crystalline Dimension NM, Monk specific)
   DPS. Best Melee spear. Hard to farm, especially on hardcore.
3. Monk Wrench (Sky City Insane+, Monk specific)
   DPS. Melee spear. Ult ones are very rare. See the tips section for a boss exploit.
4. * Obsidian Sparus (Akatiti Jungle, random reward)
   DPS/Builder. Best ranged spear, but still good for melee.
5. * Quietus (Moonbase, Monk specific)
   DPS/Builder. Easy to farm.
6. Ember Crescent (Embermount Volcano NM, Monk specific)
   Builder. Hard to farm.

1. Sword of Embers (Embermount Volcano NM, Squire specific)
   DPS. Gives 10% movement speed. Hard to farm.
2. Eternian Greatsword (Old One, Crystalline Dimension NM, Squire specific)
   DPS. Can fire ranged projectiles to draw aggro. Don’t upgrade the ranged damage. Hard to farm, especially on hardcore.
3. * Obsidian Gladius (Akatiti Jungle, random reward)
   DPS/Builder. Fastest attack rate.
4. Steam Saw (Sky City Insane+, Squire specific)
   DPS. Highest base damage for Barbarian Hawk Stance. Ult ones are very rare. See the tips section for a boss exploit.
5. Undertow (Temple of Water, random reward)
   Builder/DPS.
6. Spinal/Bone Sword, Skeletal Blade, Bone Saw (enemy drop)
   Builder. These can drop with up to 450 per stat in endgame Survival maps.
7. * Roger’s Revenge (Buccaneer Bay, random reward)
   DPS/Builder. Slightly worse than the Steam Saw for Barbarian Hawk Stance. Easy to farm.

• Wolfhunter’s Bow, Lupine Bow (enemy drop)
  Fires 5 projectiles that pierce through walls and enemies. A good weapon to pair with a Genie pet to upgrade your defenses quickly. It must be unlocked by completing Halloween Spooktacular 1/2 on Hard. It is useless if it doesn’t have additional projectiles and fire/poison damage. The base damage is electric and you want it to have multiple elemental types in case of immunities. Ultimate ones are often worse than lower quality ones because you don’t want the base damage to go above 1000. Upgrade the Additional Projectiles and Shots Per Second to max and then get the base damage to 1000 and Elemental damage 10000. See here for more details.
• BF Drill (Volcanic Eruption)
  A good weapon for farming Lab Assault. The Laser Pistol is the core drop equivalent but it’s not as good.

Best Pets

DPS pets listed below are useful for different purposes. Keep your best ones for each.

1. Genie (random reward, Tavern Defense Survival Wave 15, Hall of Court Survival Wave 15)
The best DPS pet for upgrading towers. The genie will backflip and a few seconds later you will gain mana. This is based on the number of hits you do during the backflip. See Genie Swirling[www.dungeondefenders.com] for more information. The best weapon to use with this pet is the Lupine Bow. My Ult Genie came as a reward from Moonbase NMHC. An ideal Genie will have over 29004 collection bonus.

2. Propeller Cat (Sky City Survival Wave 25)
The best pet for Barbarian or Series EV when boss killing. It’s also the best pet for groups with multiple DPS heroes. It buffs the damage of you and nearby heroes/pets to 1.5x to 2.2x. You can only gain this buff from one Propeller Cat, so having multiple players with one is a waste. The one from Insane is usable, but you need to farm it on Nightmare for the best stats. Upgrade hero number (3star), then boost intensity (blue chevron), and then range (orange star). Range caps at 90, so don’t bother upgrading it more.

3. Mega Chicken (Tinkerer’s Lab Survival Wave 35)
The highest melee-range DPS pet for the Monk. It can deal over 10 million physical DPS on the Monk without Hero Boost. It does about 40% more damage than the Seahorse in melee range (1) on the Monk and 25% more on Huntress/Ranger. It is a difficult pet to farm even on Insane mode.

4. Seahorse (Temple of Water Wave 30, Aquanos Survival Wave 20)
The highest melee-range DPS pet for most heroes. It only does poison damage so immune enemies will not take damage from it. It also doesn’t scale as well with Hero Damage compared to the Mega Chicken, but it has slightly longer range. The one from Temple of Water is potentially 20% better than Aquanos.

5. Guardian Pets (random reward, The Summit class specific)
Buffs up to 5 of the nearest defenses. These do not stack with Buff Beams but they do stack with Monk Boost. Huntress Guardian buffs attack rate by 3x, Apprentice buffs damage by 2.75x, Monk increases range/radius by 2.1x, and Squire reduces damage taken to 25% of the original damage. Defenses can only be buffed by one of each type of Guardian. If you use two of the same type then their buffs can overlap on the same targets and waste it. Defense Boosts (blue chevron) caps at 40 and Range (orange star) caps at 90 (1)[dungeondefenders.wikia.com]. You get nothing for upgrading these stats any further. These are the best pets for Pure Strategy and can be used on idle heroes in splitscreen mode.

6. Fairy (Temple of Water Survival Wave 25, random reward)
A pet that heals you and nearby allies. This is good pet for challenges and bosses where mana is limited and you can’t stop to heal. Specifically, it’s useful for team healing in Temple of Polybius, The Great Turkey Hunt, Old One in Crystalline Dimension, etc. The Goblin Cupid and Cowboy Monkey can attack enemies while healing you and allies but they’re a lot less reliable at healing. The best Fairy I got as random rewards was Transcendent with 4.5k healing. The very best Fairy I got was Supreme with 7k healing from from Temple of Water Survival.

7. Imp (random reward)
Repairs a nearby tower. Can be used on idle heroes in splitscreen mode. Doesn’t work in Pure Strategy Mode. Allows you to AFK while farming Moonbase NMHCMM by repairing the auras.

Fenix and Ember Pony have been buffed to be equal to the Seahorse (1)[forums.dungeondefenders.com], but I have not tested this. See here for alternative pets, comparisons, and how to upgrade your pets.

1. The Diamond (Combine 88 coal from Winter Wonderland or Silent Night on Nightmare)
Requires level 100. Gives up to 800 to every stat and Increases movement speed by 41.5%. The movement speed buff stacks if you use two of them on the Summoner. It rolls better than Treadmill on Treadmill and you can upgrade it more, so you might want to farm one. Very time consuming to farm. This will take you 2 days in Winter Wonderland compared to 12 minutes for Moonbase.

2. Treadmill on a Treadmill (Moonbase NM/Survival NM) (3)
Requires level 100. Gives up to 700 to every stat (overcaps to 800) and increases movement speed by 45%. The movement speed buff stacks if you use two of them on the Summoner. Can only be obtained from Nightmare mode after pressing 2 buttons, scoring 42 on the DDR machine, touching the fish bowl, and beating the map. One button is under a stairway and the other is on the wall above the Forge. You can reach the button above the Forge in multiple ways. One way is to jump from on top of the Eternia Crystal into the vent and then again in mid-air to land. You can also fly from the top of the crystal or enter a black hole from a destroyed cyrstal. To earn 42 you need to get a perfect 54-65, let the score drop, and then score a couple more non-contiguous points so that it lands on 42. Yellow and Blue are the easiest DDR difficulties. You have a lot of time to play the DDR game, so it is doable even if you aren’t very good.

3. Animorphic Ember (Embermount Volcano Survival Wave 40)
Requires level 100. Gives up to 825 to every stat. It can never have Hero Damage. Way harder to farm than Treadmill on a Treadmill and it usually has just as good of stats without the bonus to movement speed.

4. Fish in a Bowl (Moonbase)
Gives 500-650 to every stat. Obtained in exactly the same way as Treadmill on a Treadmill (above) but without scoring 42 on the DDR machine.

5. Kobold on Treadmill (Tavern Defense Survival Wave 35, Akatiti Jungle Survival Wave 35)
Gives up to 600 to every stat. Don’t farm this on Tavern Defense Pure Strategy because the stats will be terrible. Usually not much better than the pets from Lab Assault.

Trading

Be very careful of what you buy. Hacked gear can get you banned. Make sure the stats on the items are possible before you consider buying or ask the community to “item check” it. See the top of the Filtering Gear section for stat caps.

1. Official Trade Forums[forums.dungeondefenders.com]
2. Player Shops
I recommend only looking for shops with Transcendent+ armor and Ult weapons. The sell value cap was recently changed to 2 billion so it might be worth checking out the shops, but good items are worth a lot more than 2 billion. I feel these are too risky to buy from and are usually a waste of time. If you buy a hacked item from a shop then don’t be surprised if you get banned.

• Mana Gems: Obtained using the Tavern Service. Not useful anymore since the mana cap was removed.
• Lab Runs
• Coal: a component to craft Diamond pets. Do not confuse this with Small Coal.
• Cube: a Weighted Companion Cube pet which is earned when you beat every original challenge map on NMHC.
• Diamonds: a builder pet with a stat cap of 800.

1 coal = 12-15 billion mana
1 cube = 5-6 coal
1 cube = 12-15 lab runs (depends on the number of heroes they bring)
1 diamond pet = 4 to 30+ cubes (around 5-10 cubes per 800 capped builder stat).

These rates will fluctuate so please do your own research using the trade forums.