How Experienced Players Play (META Guide)

Armors are huge factor of your stats, without armor, your stats wouldn't really mean anything. But you have reached level 74 yet? If yes, Congrats, you made a milestone! Why is it that important when it's not even lvl 100? Hitting Level 74 means you can finally use Mythical Items, (Lightblue shiny outlined items) which will boost your stat dramatically. You will now, be able to solo maps in nightmare hardcore mode! But, only if you know how to build properly.

Your basic builds should include: Auras, Minions, Apprentice Towers, EV Beams, and maybe even traps.

(The Bracketed Towers mean they are META)

Basic Idea of the Builds:

(You should buff beam everything you have)

Apprentice Towers (Lightning (LT) and Deadly Striker (DST) ) = Main Source of Damage with chain effects, and insane damage. (Should Focus on Tower Dmg > Tower Rate > Tower Range > Tower Health)
Minions (Archer, Spider, Mage) = Blockades that can be healed on it's own (Focus on Tower Health> Dmg > Rate > Range)
Aura Stack (Slow, electric, Strength Drain) = An effective support that will filter out goblins and small mobs(or called "Trash") so that DST and LT can focus on ogres, djinns, and bigger mobs, while reducing incoming damage and slowing enemies.(Focus on Either Tower Range, or Tower Damage > Health > Rate)
EV Beams (Buff Beam, Physical, Reflection) = Buff Beam is a support that will increase tower damage, range, rate, health by twice, three times, etc. Just by placing buff beam on a tower and max upgrading it, you will see how much more damage you do with your towers.
(use buff beam on Minions, Traps, Auras, Apprentice Towers) Reflection Beam bounces off all projectiles (missiles are exception), it's very useful for protecting your main source of damage, DST and LT. (Focus On Either Tower DMG or Tower Health and forget about other two)
Traps (Gas, Inferno, Darkness, Ethereal Lightning) = Support to damage boost and stalls small mobs while they get killed by aura. (Tower Dmg > Range > Health > Rate)

*You/Everyone in the lobby needs to be summoner, in order to get armors only!!*

Where to keep grinding and get to Level 74? : Glitterhelm Carvens, on insane mode hardcore survival. (Grind means play on Survival after beating without survival mode on)

After reaching level 74, try Deeper Well on nightmare hardcore and work your way up to the whole campagin. Once you beat the Ancient Dragon, Move on to Glitterhelm Carvens on nightmare hardcore.

You will, be able to find mythical item there! Your first big step! For armors, you can get more stats by equipping same type of armor!
ex: If you are wearing Plate Helmet, equip all plate items, it results with 25% stat boost)
Stat boost by 25%? That's right. But even better, there is better items than Mythical.
The better the quality of the item is, the higher stat boost you will receive!

What to do after getting Glitterhelm Carven mythical items?: Move on to Dread Dungeon on NMHC, it's not a hard map. In dread dungeon, you will be able to find Transcendent Items, around wave 20 or 23. You should always remember to equip items that has high stats on stats you should be focusing on.

Then consider doing Aquanos, which can give you a good loot, but also extremely easy.

After that, Move onto either MistyMire, or King's Game, (If you are level 100 and have 4-5k stats, move onto Infested Ruins survival and get Ult, Ult+ and Ult ++)

DIsclaimer (There is no best hero, you need all the combination to play this game)

Effective Builder Heroes: Initiate, Adept, Summoner, EV, Huntress

Best Builder pets: Diamond, Treadmil on Treadmil, Moon, Skeleton on Treadmil, Turkey On Treadmil, Animorphic Ember, Dice

Best Builder Weapon:

(If you have another weapon that is very high on the stat you need, ignore recommendation and use it)

Adept: Elder staff, Obsidian Clava, Fusion Rift

Initiate: Obsidian Sparus, Ember Cresent, Mischief Maker, Chicken Baller

Huntress: Blaster Rifle, Kraken Kannon, (and other Prize Drop weapons that have high stats on tower)

EV: Obsidian Clava, Fusion Rift, Elder Staff. (But you can have two of them)

Not Effective Builder Heroes: All the male heroes (Males are generally slower, switching costume into male costume will reduce speed, switching to female will make you faster), Jester, (Jester towers are basically troll) and countess (Her Towers deal poor damage and harpoon is very situational)

As I Wrote in the Armor Section, I will rewrite it here!

(You should buff beam everything you have)

Apprentice Towers (Lightning (LT) and Deadly Striker (DST) ) = Main Source of Damage with chain effects, and insane damage. (Should Focus on Tower Dmg > Tower Rate > Tower Range > Tower Health)

Minions (Archer, Spider, Mage) = Blockades that can be healed on it's own (Focus on Tower Health> Dmg > Rate > Range)

Aura Stack (Slow, electric, Strength Drain) = An effective support that will filter out goblins and small mobs, while reducing incoming damage and slowing enemies.(Focus on Either Tower Range, or Tower Damage > Health > Rate)

EV Beams (Buff Beam, Physical, Reflection) = Buff Beam is a support that will increase tower damage by twice, three times, etc. Just by placing buff beam on a tower and max upgrading it, you will see how much more damage you do with your towers. (use buff beam on Minions, Traps, Auras, Apprentice Towers) Reflection Beam bounces off all projectiles, it's very useful for protecting your main source of damage, DST and LT. (Focus On Either Tower DMG or Tower Health and forget about other two)


Traps (Gas, Inferno, Darkness, Ethereal Lightning) = Support to damage boost and stalls small mobs while they get killed by aura. (Tower Dmg > Range > Health > Rate)

REMEMBER THAT CHARACTERS THAT ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO FIGHT IN WAVES NEED RESISTANCE! Every 10th upgrade will allow you to upgrade resistance if you cannot upgrade it randomly anymore. Make sure to get it to 90% or close to that

You would also need AT LEAST 1 jester throughout the game to upgrade buff beams. Using Mana Swirling technique, (Which is genie and lupine bow / chicken baller combo) you can get them fully upgraded in seconds. And get a good DPS staff, for clearing ogres and djinns. Try to get Wheel O' Fortuna skill to 3726. that should do half the original bar health damage to all enemies, if ogre is health is below 50% wheel would insta kill it if it's at 3726. The wheel doesn't discriminate. Meaning, if there are two or more jesters using wheel o fortuna that is maxed, it will insta kill all the mobs present on the battlefield.

Monk is pretty much required to be helpful online. Monk can be used many ways, as a Hero Booster, Tower Booster, or DPS. But I will explain just Tower boost and DPS since Hero boost is very simillar to DPS monk.
Tower Booster : Use Chicken Baller, with a genie. Since chickens bounce off the walls and explode, it can hit multiple enemies and give you insane amount of mana and you can keep boosting.

DPS : You are going to want more health since you cannot boost forever. Try focusing on your Hero Damage Stat while also focusing on hero boost stat. Or leaving it at around 2k is still fine. Try using high damage pets and weapons.
Recommended Weapon: Mischief Maker, Candy Cane, Obsidian Sparus, Monk Wrench.
Recommended Pets: Seahorse, Desert Goblin, Fenix, Propeller Cat, Fairy (For Polybius. Not only monk should have these pets, but all the DPS except for Barbarian and EV should have these)
and other high damage dealing pets.

Barbarian and DPS Ev are also a nice DPS heroes, consider getting them when you have time.
(Just build either skill or full on hero dmg and just get nice damage weapons, but make sure to use Propeller cat as a pet. It will help so much on damage using their skills)
(But, DPS Ev must use Ember Sceptre or Honey Gun because of how much damage proton beam charge would deal)

You also might want a booster summoner, which is basically an AFK character with Huntress Guardian and either Monk or Apprentice guardian on to boost DST and LT, which is effective when trying to farm armor.

Thank you So MUCH for reading my guide! It's still nice to see players play this old game. Long story short, please leave suggestions and your thoughts down below and feel free to correct me if I wrote a mistake.

I will leave some Links that will help you out a bunch!

https://discord.gg/FE4cRCs

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/DDRnG

https://discord.gg/dd2

https://dundefplanner.com/list.php

https://dungeondefenders.fandom.com/wiki/Dungeon_Defenders_Wiki

And Thank you @Danfeop for suggesting some guide contents!