Overview
Welcome to the comprahensive guide to “Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution: The Last Stand”.
Introduction
Please understand this guide will be a constant work in progress and I will be adding things as I continue to learn about this game and how it works, but I aim to give you the 101 and beyond to help you achieve your best, without you needing to spend countless hours, as many have, learning how each detail of the game functions.
Game Settings
If you’re confident that your game runs well feel free to skip this part, although it may still be of benefit.
First thing is first, when you want to be good at anything you must set yourself up for success.
Without the correct settings your ascent to greatness will be hindered, lag and poorly set out keyboard layouts are never welcome in the world of a champion.
Game Options
The only thing of note here is the “Grid Hotkeys”, this option puts your wargear abilities into your QWERTY row and your character directions into the ASDF row; this means you won’t be needing to run a marathon across your keyboard each time you want to use an ability or execute a specific character direction.
Graphics
In a lot of cases, ensuring your game is running smoothly comes down to your ingame graphics settings, as on some mid-range to lower-end systems can display severe stutters late game, even if your frame rate seems fine at the beginning of the round.
How high you set your options is up to preference and the limits of your hardware.
You’ll want to start off with the Performance Test, and let it set the options it recommends, then run it again to see how your frame rate fares; if it sits at an average above 50, you should be fine with those settings.
Also worth considering dropping your Terrain Detail to low no matter what the Performance Test says, as certain weapons will leave behind persistent scarring to the battlefield and will remain until the end of the game, meaning that no matter what your Performance Test indicates, your Graphics Card and CPU will be working quite a bit harder toward the end of the round to maintain smooth gameplay.
If you’re unsure of what this all means, run the game at the settings you desire, and if your game begins to slow down/stutter, try turning down your graphics settings.
Sound
For the volume settings, just set them to whatever floats your metaphorical boat, and for the Speaker Configuration and Quality settings, just select what best matches your speakers/headset and soundcard.
Heroes
Faced with a selection of 6 heroes (7 if you have the Tau Shas’O commander DLC), who knows what the difference is? Which door will you take?
A tall lady in a fine gown?
The Farseer
The Farseer represents the Eldar as a supportive spellcaster role, with abilities that give your allies incredible benefits, such as damage resistance and confusing enemies.
Although her combat capabilities are limited she is incredibly sturdy and has one or two powerful combat abilities.
She is quite difficult to get the hang of, but no one denies the value in a seasoned farseer, the most powerful hero when it comes to teamplay.
The Green Goblin without his Goblin Glider?
The Mekboy
The Mekboy is da Orkiest ov ’em all, war is in his blood.
You’ll be facing the tides head with explosive power, or mowing down hordes from afar.
Although durability is not his strong suit, his offensive power is incredible, high damage ranged weapons and some of the most destructive melee wargear.
Your enemies will cower in fear as you explode in their faces and support your allies with your mighty Boss Pole.
The Iron Avenger?
The Captain
The Space Marine Captain is equipped with adamantium power armor, able to shrug off blasts from a tank, whilst still packing a mean punch.
His high armor value and healing capabilities make him one of the most durable heroes, whilst still able to carry Chainswords, Bolt Pistols, Lighting Claws, Plasma Cannons and more.. Even if you have no clue what any of those are, you know they sound epic, and you’re not wrong.
The monstrosity of a xeno with a hunger to boot?
The Hive Tyrant
This hero is an absolute monstrosity, even though he moves noticeably slower than any of the other heroes he cannot be knocked back or suppressed no matter what his wargear.
His armor rivals that of the Space Marine Captain, and the viable customisation options are seemingly endless in comparison to any other hero.
You’ll also find a great range of minions at your disposal.. Minions that can be just as scary as any other hero if built properly.
Spooky shaman man with a goat skull?
The Chaos Sorcerer
Ah yes, the Chaos Sorcerer, representing the tainted Chaos Space Marines, why would you choose someone so obviously insane? Why for the glory of Tzeentch of course!
You have two basic themes with this, a narcissistic heretic or a conjuror of powerful beasts, able to forge doppelgangers of foes with the dark powers of the warp.
As the dark side of the force awakens within you, great powers will be revealed.. If you take this path you must know that there is no turning back, as the taint of the warp and the absolute power it brings is ultimate; to those who succumb, there is only glory… or death.
The gentleman in the fine garb?
The Lord General
Dressed in his dapper drapes comes the Imperial Guard’s Lord General, with the ability to carry and fire a sniper rifle, in one hand, with remarkable marksmanship, whilst brandishing a power sword, in the other, ready for a melee!
Although in most cases he’s a jack of all trades, yet a master of none (as he is able to bring along a myriad of turrets, guardsmen and other abilities), and quite malleable, he offers one of the highest burst damages in the game with his High Powered Shot and Rocket Run abilities.
The downloadable one.
The Shas’O Commander
Hidden behind the chicken coop’s paywall is The Shas’O Commander, I’m not entirely sure why he’s been named such as Shas’O literally means Commander.
Redundancy aside this hero packs a mean punch, with powerful weaponry, a choice of shields or doubling up on weapons, a good variety of armor, a need for speed and a whole lot more.
Whether you wish to DakkaDakka with miniguns, pelt your foes with balls of hot plasma, launch anti-armor missiles at vehicles or simply stomp about the field with your jumping ability, Commander Shas’O Shas’O Commander’O Shas’Commander has you covered.
Level Up!
After you’ve figured out which hero you’re going to play, you’re going to want to level it up so you get new wargear.
Despite what seems like the most straight-forward answer, experience isn’t based on your score for the round; here I’ll be explaining the difference between score and experience, and how they work.
Experience
Experience is gained based on the wave you ended your round on, and the amounts per wave varies between The Bloodied Colosseum and The Anvil of Khorne.
On The Bloodied Colosseum you’ll be gaining experience gradually with larger amounts of experience on each boss wave (every 4 waves), waves 16 and 20 awarding a massive 600XP each due to them being what makes Colosseum so difficult (bringing the best wargear tends to be the best wargear to kill you, meaning the normal waves will be more difficult as your builds wont be optimal); upon completion you will recieve 5,100XP.
In Colosseum you’re looking for more strategic builds, as on wave 16 and 20 you’ll be facing doppelgangers of yourself and your team mates, but they deal more damage than you do.
Auto attacks are not an option, you need to have a plan.
On The Anvil of Khorne you’ll be looking at 100XP per wave, increasing by a futher 100XP after every 5th wave; just make sure you bring a powerful build or you’ll be falling short of the big points every time, something your team won’t appreciate.
Your final cut will be 5,000XP. A negligible loss in comparison to Colosseum.
Do not mistake Anvil as “quick experience” due to being able to bring anything you want without the consequences of dopplegangers blasting you to gibblets, as you really need to have a powerful build to succeed. Something that you’ll lack in most cases until around level 7 or so for most races.
In Anvil you’re looking for the wargear that is simply the most destructive in your hands (although don’t sacrifice survivability if that is an issue for you). You’ll be up against superheavies, capable of sustaining injuries you couldn’t dream of, and dealing the kind of damage, that if you get in their way, will see your health depleted very fast.
Score
Your score is essentially just there to show how adept you are at the game.
It is awarded for any of your team killing enemy units, your whole team working on the same score.
The points you get is based on the point value of the killed enemy unit multiplied by your total multiplier.
Your total multiplier is comprised of 3 other multipliers:
Time Multiplier – You’ll start with a base of 3.0x and each 4 rounds 0.5x will be added to that.
Also note that every 25 seconds the multiplier will drop by 0.5x all the way down to 0.0x if you take to long, meaning you won’t get any points; but at the end of each wave it is reset back to base.
Survival Multiplier – You’ll start with a base of 1x yet as each wave is completed, without a hero being downed, it will be raised by 1, all the way up to 20x at round 20; that is IF you make it to round 20 without any fallen heroes.
The fall of a hero sees this score revert back to 1x resulting in another climb up to the big points, and a much lower score.
Control Multiplier – This multiplier is as simple as they get.
Each map has 2 control points each, and each one is worth a 3x multiplier (although having control of neither means 1x not 0x).
Owning both of these will see you to an easy 6x multiplier, definitely a must for those high scores. Adversely if you’re going for experience, don’t focus on these as you’re more likely to get killed, resulting in less experience due to an early loss.
Good practice comes in keeping them all captured but is nary of importance.
In a game where a high score is the aim, and all your multipliers are maximised, you’ll be seeing a hefty 660x multiplier for the first 25 seconds on wave 20 on both maps.
In-Game User Interface
Although the UI is quite straightforward I’ll be giving a rundown of its layout.
You’ll see that the four main UI regions have been highlighted, purely for the simplicity in identifying each section.
Top Left
First thing seen is the big bright red bar which displays what have you are on, as well as how much of the wave has been killed; as troops die the red bar will deplete.
Below the wave bar is the wave image, displaying what faction you are facing, and often the leader of the wave; on the initial Tyranid Ravener wave it will display a Ravener in the image, making it easier for newer players to identify the wave.
Next to the wave image is all of the multipliers you could hope for; Time, Survival, Capture and Total.
Directly below the multipliers is the Total Score.
Top Right
Here you’ll see the Menu button, usually used for quitting mid game, why else would you go to a menu eh? You slimy sea dog 😉
Then you’ll see three icons illustrating which hero each player is, their name and an indication of their health and energy reserves.
Upon hovering your cursor over one of the heroes it will display how much health and energy they have as a number.
Also, you’ll see a small thunderbolt-esque icon which will change depending on the type of damage the hero is using; For example a melee hero will have an icon of a warhammer or fist.
Bottom Left
This is the minimap, the map itself gives a view of the battlefield layout and indicates friendly heroes as a golden bullseye, and enemy heroes as red bullseyes as well as red triangles for the heavier enemies and small red dots for the general swarm.
Control Points are displayed as a round icon with a star cut out with three colours depending on ownership; blue means you control it, gray is neutral and red means the enemy has control over it, but do not worry as enemy control simply means slightly longer capture time and no loss of score in comparison to neutral.
Finally you’ll note two beacon icons which are useful for signaling to your group that you need help, there is big trouble in a specific location, indicating which gate the bosses will spawn from, spamming like crazy for the lols and more; not the most critical feature but using it never hurts.
Bottom Right
Here is your personal UI, it describes your hero and how he acts, we will be discussing what exactly that means as there is a lot going on here which more APM minded players (actions per minute, as in how regularly you make actions) will take great value to.
Any icons with a letter in the top left corner are usable by simply hitting the corresponding key on your keyboard, so you don’t need to take your eyes off the fight to click each icon before use!
Firstly you see an image of your hero, as well as his health and energy pools.
Beside the top of your image is your Ability Bar, which has icons for each ability available to you.
When abilities are used they will be greyed out for a period meaning it is on cool down and un-useable for the time being.
Below your Ability Bar is the title of your hero, your gamer tag, your hero’s current level (will increase if you gain enough experience ingame, handy if you’re looking to reach a goal level) as well as a kill counter (feel free to shout out your massive kill count at random intervals to inspire your team mates into working harder so they can beat you, in turn making it easier for you to win… assuming they don’t do anything stupid).
And then you’ll see that little row of icons, being the Actions Bar, I’ll go through each of them for you.
Stance Toggle: Clicking this icon will toggle your stance from Ranged/Melee if you have the ability to use both.
Attack-Move: This action does exactly what it sounds like, you’ll move toward your targeted position engaging any foes along the way.
Stop: This will stop your hero from doing whatever it is up to (hopefully). I’ve found this to sometimes seemingly not work, although it may just depend on the type of action.
Melee Attack: This is essentially used as a temporary stance toggle for those ranged heroes who have melee capabilities, as it will force your hero to engage a selected target in melee combat.
Attack Ground: Used by weapons with Area of Effect capabilities, this allows you to simply bombard a targeted destination rather than specific unit, useful when you wish to shoot in the direct center of large mobs.
Buildings, Cover, and Line of Sight
Beyond your wargear, this is all you have to survive.
If Bear Grylls was stranded on an island where xenos swarmed from every angle, you know sure as hell he’d be keeping out of sight, using cover to stop himself being mortally wounded, and hide in his little grass hut whenever he needs a break from it all.
Here you’ll be learning the keys to survive in the wild.
Cover
Oh where to start with this one…
For starters yellow cover gives you 60% damage resistance (before considering armor) and lowers enemy accuracy by 40%.
This means you’re avoiding 74% of the damage of what the enemy is throwing at you.
Green cover is improved on that although I cannot find information on the statistics for it, just take it when it’s within reach.
The larger heroes have lower bonuses for cover so just be a little more cautious, but don’t be afraid to sit tight for a few seconds on that sweet sweet green getting those few critical shots off before retreating to your friends for help.
Additionally many attacks will ignore cover, for example grenades, which are quite common.
You will always take full damage from attacks that ignore cover, and flamers deal 2x damage when you’re in cover.
The only enemy natively with a flamer is the melee dreadnoughts in Anvil, although letting them get that close is a death note itself.
Also note, your clones on wave 16 of Colosseum may also have flamers if you have brought such wargear, the trait for those flamers only says ignores cover, so I’m unsure if they have the 2x cover damage multiplier, but I’d hope you’re doing what you can to avoid any damage when possible either way.
Also note, cover isn’t simply a universal buff, although the mechanic is often broken it is only meant to work from the direction if the cover.
Simply keep it in mind, but any cover is good cover.
As great as cover sounds, enemies can take advantage of cover too, so be diligent.
Buildings
Cover V.2.0, Buildings provide a 40% accuracy reduction and 70% damage reduction to those firing upon you, though you’ll be far more vulnerable to grenades, other attacks which ignore cover will still be fully effective, and those using melee attacks do heavy damage to the building.
Yes, I said damage to the building, meaning it will break under heavy fire, and you’ll be catapulted out taking huge damage (most often you’ll be dead immediately), use sparingly.
Whilst indoors you’ll be unable to use any abilities whatsoever, this includes teleports, you must be fully departed from a building to use an ability.
In short, buildings are nothing to scoff at, the defensive bonuses are inconceivable, but do not abuse this blessing, as all good things must come to an end.
Your buildings will break under prolonged heavy damage, let’s just hope you’re wise enough to not break with it.
Line of Sight
Cover Ex Machina, whether using the buildings in Colosseum or the tanks in Anvil, if the enemy can’t see you, it can’t attack you (most of the time).
While an enemy is out on the hunt, looking for a target to focus on, so long as you’re out of sight it won’t focus on you (since it doesn’t know you’re there, duh), so unless you’re ready to take an enemy out make sure you know which gates will aggress you and which ones you’re safe from.
I’ll be covering aggression later as it doesn’t quite fit the title here.
Most abilities require line of site as well as firing of weapons, so retreat behind cover to buy yourself a few moments of safety.
Retreating behind cover is one of the best ways to escape danger, as attacks that don’t bypass it are effectively 100% mitigated.
Make sure that if you’re a hero with low armor you use all three of these effectively, as they’ll be your best defence no matter the situation.
Enemy Aggression: How it works!
As you become more familiar with the game you’ll need to learn why the enemies target you, as picking your fights carefully is an essential key to surviving the living tides of the foe.
We won’t be discussing which enemies to engage or not, as that is up to your intuition (In time you’ll learn the limits of your heroes and know when to engage in combat or flee retreat), but I’ll be telling you the simplest way to avoid a fight you cannot afford to partake in, or, if you have sure footing, taking the aggression off your team mates when they are in dire straits.
Avoiding Aggression
Your first consideration in avoiding the thunder of guns, is your positioning.
As enemies spawn in they’ll select the first hero in their line of sight, with the exception of a select few which run to the furthest hero; often in those horde waves.
Take advantage of buildings, if they can’t see you they’ll follow a linear path until they have a target; avoid shooting/using abilities on them until they’ve locked onto a target or you’ll be targetted.
Hiding behind friendly minions or tanky heroes also works a treat, as minions are disposable and tanky heroes can take the heat whilst you assist with the crowd control.
If foes have been disengaged for an extended period, often due to teleportation/jump movements leaving them running cross-country, they’ll often consider a new target; don’t assume that since they are chasing someone that they are 100% locked on.
Using abilities may also cause enemies to aggress you, and the Space Marine Captain’s Taunt ability will always make an enemy target the Taunter.
Stopping On-Going Aggression
As much as we all wish we could take down any number of enemies it isn’t always so simple.
When you’re in too deep and you’re being chased, and you know you won’t make it out without significant damage, you’ll need to take action to dismiss those in hot pursuit.
If you have an ally nearby as well as a building, entering the building and then exiting will often divert their gaze unto another horizon, they’ll still be too close for comfort so delaying your attacks may be a good option.
If your team has a Shas’O or Farseer you may have the option of simply confusing foes, this simply causes them to immediately re-consider their aggressions and opens possibility to attacking their own allies, (Although of another unit, not the same.) just be sure you aren’t close-by or you’ll likely still be a target.
Disrupting Line of Sight will occasionally be enough persuasion for your foes to find a less evasive target, although chances are relatively low it is still better than nothing.
On the Bloody Colosseum units with Teleport or Jump abilities may use such abilities to rapidly position themselves deep into a spawn point, so long as your pursuers are not too close this will make them find a new target.
And in the advent of foes who are range specialists consider engaging in close-combat, as many ranged specialists are abysmal in a melee.
Remember that these only work if there is another target nearby, if there isn’t they’ll simply stutter their movement and resume pursuit.
Kiting also helps bide time, we’ll speak of that in the next section as there is a lot to cover that isn’t strictly dealing with aggression.
Kiting
In just about any round you win, someone will have been forced into a kiting maneuver, exceptions to this usually come with teams built upon sheer brute force, able to tank like beasts and dish out the heat in tandem; Learning to kite effectively is a must in anyone’s repertoire of skills.
Whilst in consideration of kiting there are two main train of thoughts; kiting in order to buy your allies the time they need to take out the trash, and kiting in order to carry through in impossible odds, as, on occasion, you’ll find both of your allies down whilsts the pressure is still high.
Biding Time
In most cases of this scenario you’ll be a hero built for supporting or tanking, and thus unable to deal the damage necessary to dispose of your foes before they dispose of you; or when you’re heavily wounded and need to recover health.
In both cases you’ll be pleading for assistance of your team mates to disintegrate the trailing forces.
Our Lord and Savour
When your team is unable to handle the wave and your allies are seriously injured/fallen it will be up to you to save the day.
You’ll need to decide whether to slowly pick off the oncoming horde to dwindle them down to relative safety in order to revive your fallen comrades, or whether to spend your efforts purely running until you find a safe opening to revive a team mate.
The latter is still worth considering even if your comrade is likely to fall again, as they may be able to slaughter a sizable portion of foes, buying you some extra breathing space.
Be sure to run between use of abilities since energy is not infinite, and movement abilities work best when accompanied with the movement of your feet.
Whilst kiting ensure you’re bundling the enemies into a single group, accounting for disparity in their speed.
Your basic plan of action should be to put some distance between those in pursuit of you and yourself, using movement abilities are helpful although not always necessary.
Secondly you’ll want to reduce any incoming damage, using cover is a necessity.
And lastly, plan your route to some degree, the last thing you want is to be cornered or find your foes taking shortcuts and separating from the horde.
Status Effects
Whilst bustling and brawling a vast array of things will contribute to how the battle plays out, a few of such lay under the idea of “Status Effects”, as they impart a certain status for a period, often to the hinderance of the target.
Here we’ll be discussing different Status Effects.
Knockback
Many weapons and abilities come with an innate chance to knock their target back, most often grenades or “Hammer of Wrath” (When a foe lunges into assault, like jumping atop your foe, or the Tyranid Warrior lunge/charge.), knocking you off your feet and onto the ground for a moment.
Many heroes have wargear which negate this effect, (The Hive Tyrant always has the ability to negate knockback, although as often displayed with the Shas’O, it can fail under certain circumstances.) very rarely are these wargears dismissed without the gaze of a more viable wargear based on the wargear build being used.
Whilst knocked down you are unable to execute any commands until the end of the animation, (getting back up inclusive) which is why the Unshakeable trait is so rarely purposely missed.
Note that The Seer Council’s ranged attacks are unaffected by Unshakeable, so take great caution.
Suppression
Every unit has a morale value that is not displayed, if it drops to 0 you’ll be slowed down to the point where you only move approximately 10% of your normal speed, you attack greatly slower and most ranged weapons cannot be used at all; this Status Effect is called Suppression.
Not all weaponry has the Suppressive trait, and you’ll quickly learn which units to look out for in order to avoid it; It’s really not hard to figure it out after only facing them twice or so.
And just like Knockback, Suppression has a counter too; Fearless.
And unlike Unshakeable, Fearless will never fail you.
Even if you lack the Fearless Trait using a jump ability immediately breaks suppression, and other movement abilities are still usually enough to break the suppressive fire for long enough to regain morale.
Stun
Although somewhat rare, in comparison to the previous Status Effects, Stun is just as dangerous.
Movement is reduced to a near-standstill, abilities are blocked (Bar Jump and Teleport.) and you won’t be able to attack; Simply put, you’re stunned, good luck getting out of this one.
Since this trait is more deadly, due to the units able to stun being often incredibly strong, I’ll tell a few different attacks capable of a Stun Effect.
-Shas’O Heavy Jet
-Hive Tyrant Seismic Roar
-Melee Dreadnought Ground Smash
Taunt
The Taunt ability causes a selected enemy unit to attack the Taunter; its range is map wide so it is especially useful if you’re going to be far from your allies.
This Ability is used strictly by the Space Marine Captain and the Hive Tyrant’s Tyrant Guard; Enemy Tyrant Guard have no such ability.
This ability has no other effects, simply makes you a blood sacrifice.
Fear
Most prominently the Space Marine Captain’s Terror of Xenos bestows this ability, causing all non-fearless foes to scurry to the other side of the map.
Confuse
The ability to confuse is not to be underestimated, it can turn the tide of a battle in the split of a second, tiding brothers against brothers, foes against foes.
Confusion causes the enemy to attack the closest unit, and if you’re the closest, you’re hardly doing yourself a favor with that waste of energy..
Now, if you are being hunted by a hoard of hungry Hormagaunts, confuse them and they’ll feed on each other’s flesh, allowing you to execute them, or run to further safety.
Warp
Although The Warp often refers to the psychic dimension that parallels our reality, this warp simply uses the power of the warp to bring enemies closer to you, effectively applying Knockback as well.
Only the Farseer’s Warp Spear has this ability.
Lock Down
The Shas’O has the ability to give his Shield Drone a buff which causes all enemies in the Drone’s radius to be Locked Down.
This effectively freezes them in time as they cannot move, attack or take damage.
Bloodied Colosseum: The Basics
The Bloodied Colosseum.
Come forth Gladator, will you be the next great show, or another pitiful drop of blood shed in the sands of The Bloodied Colosseum!
This map is big and open, with four spawn gates neatly lined up for you.
Two large towers mark the map upper and lower, affording you great cover and a block of line of site.
There are also rocks and ruins scattered across the map, these will be your cover, make good use of them.
Now why come here, what is the big attraction that you’ve crossed many great lands to get to? Heh.. The only thing you have to fear is yourself.
You’ll be faced with a clone of yourself and allies, with one difference, their weapons are more powerful than yours. Good luck.
Oh, and don’t forget.. Even if you do manage to incapacitate them the first time, they come back, with a chaos lord, all the bosses from the waves between waves 16 and 20, and a slew of blood letters.
Now, you may be wondering “OMGWTFBBQ HOW AM I MEANT TO KILL A MORE POWERFUL VERSION OF MYSELF WHEN I AM MYSELF AND HE IS MORE POWERFUL OMG I CAN’T EVEN PLSSSS!!?!?!?!?1/2/1/1//?!/”, and yeahhh that’s a pretty solid question, it definitely doesn’t come easy; but I supply you with the tools you need.
1. Don’t bring the most powerful wargear available to yourself, think about how your clones may use it, and how you can use it against them; got a big ol’ bomb? Just time it right to catch them by surprise and cross your fingers, I guess?
2. Team work, how are you meant to kill yourself and your allies if they aren’t helping you? Very rare cases will one hero be able to just nuke them to gibblets but don’t expect it in your ordinary public match.
3. Identifying the Hot Gate, where the clones actually come from.
Without this information you won’t be able to prepare yourself accordingly. You’ll be panning your camera around the map hoping to catch them before they catch you.
So where the hay is this hotgate? Read on and you’ll find the answers you seek.
Hot Gate
Oh, that was quick, if I knew you were coming I would have baked a cake!
Where were we… Oh! That Hot Gate!
To locate the hotgate there are two simple ways to go;
1. In the first wave, look at the gates which do not open from spawns, in one of those gates only Hormagaunts will spawn, this is the Hot Gate.
2. In wave 9 there will be a gate where two groups of banshees will spawn, a group of 4 squads and a group of 6, this is the Hot Gate.
Bloodied Colosseum: Unit Gates Part 1
Who is coming next?
Here I’ll be laying out the long list of which heroes come from which gate, understand this is not for those who would call themselves a casual gamer. If you wish to gain an in depth understanding of how each wave works, and possibly memorise who comes from where (yes, it is possible), then this is for you.
(This is broken into three sections as I repeatedly ran into the character limit.)