Team setup (duo)

[Varrxion]

After some research me and my friend decided to play as the squire (them) and the monk (me). Squire is obviously the best tower class, so we know what build to go for involving the squire. But as the monk in a team of only 2, would it be more beneficial to get really good auras, or a boss grinder with super high dps? information that isn't from some random board in 2013 is really hard to come by for this game. Any input/suggestions are appreciated.

[Daggers]

aprentice continue the best one

[Billy]

apprentice is generally the best tower char

[Xengre]

As others said App is the single most powerful/important character in this game atm. Squire used to be best but has been out of date, actually literally borderline worthless, ever since they fixed and buffed Lightning Towers and DST for Apprentice.

Now builds typically are massive LT spam, massive DT spam, or a combo of the two depending on stats/goals/map. At lower levels (like pre-74 and even early NM before your stats start climbing to around 1kish or higher) Squire can often be a better choice for many maps. It isn't wrong to stick with your squire until you start doing Nightmare content at which point you can farm another level 74 character extremely fast to have App replace Squire or any DPS characters needed. You don't really need DPS characters for boss slaying in advancing content for the most part. There are plenty of maps without bosses that can be farmed well enough for gear and tower builders are by far the most important. You can throw together a makeshift DPS monk extra character later on when it might matter a little to you, at which point you can level a seperate one to 74+ fast. Make a primarily monk aura only tower character. Monks benefit heavily from good pets. Do Aquanos for a good seahorse, especially if you can manage Insane Aquanos up to wave 20 for pretty good Seahorses with hero boost on monk. As for App the easy lazy build is a ton of LT to damage all mobs on map and draw aggro (lets builds not defending all crystals be more reliable too) while making maps faster because it can hit the entire map basically.

LT NEEDS buff beam from series EV to work right. Any naked level 20 or whatever EV is fine for buff beams. Don't need to worry much about her stats as she doesn't get much for buff beam from stats. In fact, buff beams are critical for pretty much all tower types including minions (makes them way tankier in the case of minions while still boosting damage some too).

Traps are important in nightmare earlier on until your stats start getting higher and can still be relevant in many builds later as well, especially gas trap.

Minions are the best walls in the game. For summoner get pure tower HP and tower defense power. Ignore tower range and rate on minions because that stat doesn't scale at all on them. Tower HP is arguably best because it makes them better walls and healing is % max hp so more hp = superior mage heals (mage auto-heals nearby minions/players missing hp, aka regenerative walls). Throw in 1-2 spider minions at each spot anything they web takes 2x dmg and can't use special moves like ogre spit ball). Those spider minions (1-2 per spot, dont need a ton) + buff beams can result in MASSIVE dps boosts from towers on ogres. Aura/traps and LT tend to deal with all trash mobs so they never reach walls if you built right.

Auras are super important so don't neglect them. Focus on tower range and tower dmg early on (range esp important so your auras can cover proper range).

[Softspokenman]

you dont need killer dps for a monk to be a boss killer just get a good dps pet and let it kill him you can focus on not getting hit and boost management

[Varrxion]

Originally posted by Xengre:

As others said App is the single most powerful/important character in this game atm. Squire used to be best but has been out of date, actually literally borderline worthless, ever since they fixed and buffed Lightning Towers and DST for Apprentice.

Now builds typically are massive LT spam, massive DT spam, or a combo of the two depending on stats/goals/map. At lower levels (like pre-74 and even early NM before your stats start climbing to around 1kish or higher) Squire can often be a better choice for many maps. It isn't wrong to stick with your squire until you start doing Nightmare content at which point you can farm another level 74 character extremely fast to have App replace Squire or any DPS characters needed. You don't really need DPS characters for boss slaying in advancing content for the most part. There are plenty of maps without bosses that can be farmed well enough for gear and tower builders are by far the most important. You can throw together a makeshift DPS monk extra character later on when it might matter a little to you, at which point you can level a seperate one to 74+ fast. Make a primarily monk aura only tower character. Monks benefit heavily from good pets. Do Aquanos for a good seahorse, especially if you can manage Insane Aquanos up to wave 20 for pretty good Seahorses with hero boost on monk. As for App the easy lazy build is a ton of LT to damage all mobs on map and draw aggro (lets builds not defending all crystals be more reliable too) while making maps faster because it can hit the entire map basically.

LT NEEDS buff beam from series EV to work right. Any naked level 20 or whatever EV is fine for buff beams. Don't need to worry much about her stats as she doesn't get much for buff beam from stats. In fact, buff beams are critical for pretty much all tower types including minions (makes them way tankier in the case of minions while still boosting damage some too).

Traps are important in nightmare earlier on until your stats start getting higher and can still be relevant in many builds later as well, especially gas trap.

Minions are the best walls in the game. For summoner get pure tower HP and tower defense power. Ignore tower range and rate on minions because that stat doesn't scale at all on them. Tower HP is arguably best because it makes them better walls and healing is % max hp so more hp = superior mage heals (mage auto-heals nearby minions/players missing hp, aka regenerative walls). Throw in 1-2 spider minions at each spot anything they web takes 2x dmg and can't use special moves like ogre spit ball). Those spider minions (1-2 per spot, dont need a ton) + buff beams can result in MASSIVE dps boosts from towers on ogres. Aura/traps and LT tend to deal with all trash mobs so they never reach walls if you built right.

Auras are super important so don't neglect them. Focus on tower range and tower dmg early on (range esp important so your auras can cover proper range).

This was very useful thank you. Why does LT need the buff beam?

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Channel 4:

Originally posted by Xengre:

As others said App is the single most powerful/important character in this game atm. Squire used to be best but has been out of date, actually literally borderline worthless, ever since they fixed and buffed Lightning Towers and DST for Apprentice.

Now builds typically are massive LT spam, massive DT spam, or a combo of the two depending on stats/goals/map. At lower levels (like pre-74 and even early NM before your stats start climbing to around 1kish or higher) Squire can often be a better choice for many maps. It isn't wrong to stick with your squire until you start doing Nightmare content at which point you can farm another level 74 character extremely fast to have App replace Squire or any DPS characters needed. You don't really need DPS characters for boss slaying in advancing content for the most part. There are plenty of maps without bosses that can be farmed well enough for gear and tower builders are by far the most important. You can throw together a makeshift DPS monk extra character later on when it might matter a little to you, at which point you can level a seperate one to 74+ fast. Make a primarily monk aura only tower character. Monks benefit heavily from good pets. Do Aquanos for a good seahorse, especially if you can manage Insane Aquanos up to wave 20 for pretty good Seahorses with hero boost on monk. As for App the easy lazy build is a ton of LT to damage all mobs on map and draw aggro (lets builds not defending all crystals be more reliable too) while making maps faster because it can hit the entire map basically.

LT NEEDS buff beam from series EV to work right. Any naked level 20 or whatever EV is fine for buff beams. Don't need to worry much about her stats as she doesn't get much for buff beam from stats. In fact, buff beams are critical for pretty much all tower types including minions (makes them way tankier in the case of minions while still boosting damage some too).

Traps are important in nightmare earlier on until your stats start getting higher and can still be relevant in many builds later as well, especially gas trap.

Minions are the best walls in the game. For summoner get pure tower HP and tower defense power. Ignore tower range and rate on minions because that stat doesn't scale at all on them. Tower HP is arguably best because it makes them better walls and healing is % max hp so more hp = superior mage heals (mage auto-heals nearby minions/players missing hp, aka regenerative walls). Throw in 1-2 spider minions at each spot anything they web takes 2x dmg and can't use special moves like ogre spit ball). Those spider minions (1-2 per spot, dont need a ton) + buff beams can result in MASSIVE dps boosts from towers on ogres. Aura/traps and LT tend to deal with all trash mobs so they never reach walls if you built right.

Auras are super important so don't neglect them. Focus on tower range and tower dmg early on (range esp important so your auras can cover proper range).

This was very useful thank you. Why does LT need the buff beam?

Everything wants the buff beam. For 4-6 DU the buff beam can boost all four tower stats.

For DPS towers its main perks is it boost damage/rate/range, or on most it is approximately about a 3x boost to total DPS so a LT that does 200k may now do 600k. In the case of LT it massively boosts its range so it can chain link to pretty much all or a good chunk of the map depending on your stats. There is a link chain cap depending on your tower range stat, however, that buff beam doesn't boost and only your app's actual range stat boosts (like chain to 30 targets max, or 70-80 at higher stats). Due to how efficient it is at killing, tho, it can still waste the map even with a chain link cap pretty effectively.

For auras/traps it massively boosts range for auras / activation range, but not area of effect range of traps which helps them cover more area and you to need less auras/traps to cover a given location. This becomes especially important in nightmare since a lot of rules change (hero dps down, pet dps way up, tower dps up, aura/trap range way down) as it helps boost aura/traps nerfed sizes up a noticeable chunk. It also makes aura last a bit longer (tho keep in mind auras drain faster more targets it is effecting over a period of time, esp str drain aura so keep those auras healed because if a aura dies it breaks buff beam... any tower that dies on a buff beam breaks the buff beam which can be a map ending failure, but it isn't hard to keep them healed just don't forget to check periodically).

For minions as they don't scale for squat with range/rate it mainly boosts tower dmg of minion (so about 2x, cause no rate scaling so not quote around 3x like DPS towers) and cuts damage they take for any minion being buffed by buff beam (stacks with strength drain). Strength drain + buff beam + high tower HP emphasis + mage minion to heal minions results in very capable minion walls.

To give an idea of how impactful this can be...
Imagine 3 LT. You got spare DU do you add another LT for 4x or do you add a buff beam which pushes it to ~9x LT DPS and lets it hit much more of the map? Obviously, 9x DPS for 3x LT + BB beats 4x LTs. Now throw in a spider minion and ogres can take around 9x * double dmg so ~18x DPS from those 3 LT + bb + spider minion web. If you monk boost it that can be made around 1-4x (depend on boost stat) * ~18x. Summoner boosters (app + huntress guardian pet on tank summoner typically which boosts tdmg + trate of up to 5 nearby towers) to push it even further. Suddenly, those 3x LT are going a LOOONG distance.

Now imagine a more typical example in many maps that use 7+ LT? 7 LT + 1 more or a buff beam? 8x LT vs 21x LT worth of DPS (before spider, monk boost, etc.)? As your tower range gets higher eventually LT and DST can LITERALLY hit pretty much the entire map of most maps so a single buff beam can handle all LT/DST at a single crystal instead of needing to build DPS towers at multiple crystals (like you do with Harpoons, Magic Missiles, and Fireball towers) and also lets you easier monk boost it in maps you are struggling (not common in survival as only summoners are used in later stage survival farming due to armor only drop trick).

So buff beams are very important in general.

[Varrxion]

So without the buff beam, should i expect in the endgame for the LT to be able to attack the whole map?

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Channel 4:

So without the buff beam, should i expect in the endgame for the LT to be able to attack the whole map?

No "without the buff beam". Use the buff beam or you are IMMENSELY gimping yourself. Buff beam is, technically, the single most important tower type in the game. Think of buff beam as a massive stat multiplier. Even end game builds use buff beam. Pretty much all builds wanting to make real progress in Nightmare difficulty that aren't challenge builds use buff beams.

[Varrxion]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Originally posted by Channel 4:

So without the buff beam, should i expect in the endgame for the LT to be able to attack the whole map?

No "without the buff beam". Use the buff beam or you are IMMENSELY gimping yourself. Buff beam is, technically, the single most important tower type in the game. Think of buff beam as a massive stat multiplier. Even end game builds use buff beam. Pretty much all builds wanting to make real progress in Nightmare difficulty that aren't challenge builds use buff beams.

Got the dlc and splitscreened with the EV. Buff beam is mighty stronk, thank you.

[Crac]

In terms of Towers, The Countess would beat most things for a brand new player. Plus my thought is the Countess WILL let you to farm exp from the ramparts* so you can build and level any future character up to level 70? So while the Adept is also good.... I think it would easier and crucially more fun to start with a Countess. This also means you can play solo and at your own pace.

*Ramparts is mission 10, you should be like level 25 when you reach it... When you are there you are ready to farm it.

Then I think you need to go questing for loot and stop trying to grind. Match your armour, so all Leather, Mail, Chain, Pristine or Plate. Matched armour gives a buff, hopefully this should raise your tower damage and running speed enough for the higher difficulties. The boss fights drop accessories make sure you pick up a set or two.


This above assumes you have zero hours in the game.




The more I think about it the more absurd mage towers seem. I can't help thinking right tower in the right place. Oh and everything shines if you give it enough support.




Moving on; I'd like to add the huntress into the mix of starting characters too. I loved that class because I could drop into a lot of games, for fill a key role and leave space for others. I had a blast playing Huntress. I can't see any point in a weak mage... Don't you have the best towers? Why do you NEED all the DU??

P.S. The girls run faster than the boys; This is crucial for getting into and beating insane difficulty and beyond. In most cases having a female builder is a better choice.



I'd say auras beats DPS. There just aren't that many boss fights and even fewer need straight DPS because you can ambush most bosses with towers or minions.

The ( DPS- ) Monk is OP I felt it noticeably. Pets ( on a monk ) do more damage, monks do great damage plus the Monk can buff himself with hero boost for slight health regeneration and EVEN more damage!!!

Generally I think a lot of the pet comments are dogma. A wishlist of the greatest of the greats is one thing, but back to earth please?

I had Griffons (12K7 on the damage stat, 6 attack rate plus 2 extra projectiles) and Serpents give “good” damage for my earlier characters. I've collected every pet, read a few guides and played a lot of public games. These were my best DPS pets for a long time.... I even kept the Griffon.

Griffons are from survival mode of the deeper well ( level 1 ) and Serpents are survival mode of Magnus Quarters ( level 3). Currently my best serpent is like 90% of my best seahorse, but was easier to get. Now if I sit on a boss my seahorse would do A LOT more damage... but real world that doesn't work. For giggles my best griffon is 3 times better... So much for seahorses. ( But The super Griffon is a much much higher tier. )

Key points on pets:

• Beat the campaign map, you don't need hardcore. This unlocks survival mode.
  
• 'Beat' the map on survival, again this can be without hardcore. You want to get the pet. This allows you to start on any previously beaten wave. You don't need to finish the level.
  
• Now it gets interesting: “do well”. The extra difficulties like hardcore and mixed mode boost the rewards. So playing an easier map ( levels 1 + 3 ) on a higher difficulty tends to be more practical. Dial up the difficulty once you've ready.
  -The exception might be Magnus Citadel for a harpoon pet? Harpoons have good range and a high rate of fire... it's not a pure DPS pet hence a reduction in damage isn't the worst thing in the world.
  
• Beware the random numbers, :( Play a lot, farm a few pets and take the best ones. You can play 13,14,15 and get the pet. So 3 waves and 15-20 mins.

Buff beams:
Buff beams boost all the tower stats, where as upgrading a tower ( maybe only ) boosts like the tower health, and damage. The result is: Deadly strikers get their rate of fire increased and traps / auras and lightning towers get a range increase. It's the stuff you really want. :)

Second in relation to buff beams, Dungeon Defenders allows you to stack nearly EVERY effect you can think of. So synergy WILL beat most efforts of brute force.




Title question: The Duo? -A: Huntress and Summoner?
The Huntress or Aura-Monk would allow you to place 'effects' for crowd control. You would need to intercept and tackle the ogres. But these effects aren't going to be smashed, so that character is free to roam.

Tower-Summoner is really a no-brainer. It's the complement to effects plus having both Defence Units and Minion Units to build with is hard to argue with. Build archers, spiders and mage where needed, and use overlord for repairs. The minion AI is sadly laughable, units won't stick together or move to heal each other and worse of all minions WILL walk of the edge of something and fall to their death. My second choice here would be back to the Countess. I think early on the front row towers are more important than the mid to late game glass cannons.



Without the buff beam?
When some idiot sells the wrong tower in combat, often an ( ensnare ) aura. The buff beams crash too; usually all of them because it's an aura. You might as well kick them and start over if the map difficulty if anything close to suitable. The weakened build just won't deal enough damage then towers start getting smashed.

The second way I'd look at this is survival matches. Once you've reach a wave you can continue from that wave, you get to wave 15 you can start from wave 15 next time. What do you do with all that build mana? You spend like 20% on towers and minions then you build buff beams. And the only thing you upgrade with your limited budget? The buff beams.


Any questions? :)

[Xengre]

Yeah, mentioned Countess > Adept early. I'd say probably until you start to get to around 1k or so stats, but I'm not 100% sure when Adept starts outshining Countess as it has been a long time.

Good point about female builders. All my builders are female except Adept (he is fast as the female version, only hero like this) as they all run faster while male heroes have more HP (for combat) and this matters in challenge/campaign maps (not survivals tho but it speeds them up a bit when building).

More on traptress:
- Inferno traps last FOREVER and are like having an extra lightning aura at that spot for great mob clearing with lower stats.

- Gas traps (most important trap) stop sharken, stop kobold, stop genie (huge deal) in nightmare and such and also just stop all trash mobs except ogre and dark elf from reaching walls.

- Proxi are excellent cheap DPS for dirty first wave challenge map/campaign builds when short on mana in some of those first waves or time and want to focus on setting up certain things with other extra mana. I cannot overstate how useful these are. Even with top end stats many players use them to reinforce the reliability of their builds. Some may not use them when speed running certain survivals and such if they are confident their builds don't need them anymore for a given run, but most still use them (esp to stop djinn despawn which can break buff beam/auras and thus instantly lose a map).

- Ethereal are extremely efficient DPS towers and excellent for boosting your DPS at wall (typically for ogres) for a really cheap 3 DU, but they do fall out once your App stats get high enough to make them needless. I definitely recommend considering them in some builds on harder maps if ogre or dark elf give you troubles until your stats get higher. Again, these are DIRT CHEAP for REALLY good DPS. Their only drawback is they only hit the area they are placed in so they aren't as good for areas with say.... needing three of them at a single crystal because of a large wall/free path for mobs, opt for a LT (or a DST even better for ogres sometimes, at higher stats) at that point.

- Darkness, useful for speed running as they strip elements letting your LT hit mobs the moment they spawn if placed at spawns for speeding up maps. Only do if you have the stats to muscle through a map and speed run it while sacrificing some DU for these at each spawn. Be aware it can mess with mob AI and cause them to target crystal sometimes if any crystals are unprotected and LT doesn't tap them fast enough in high mob count runs like later survival maps (due to LT target limit) thus causing failed runs. Basically, don't use without stats for X map with a good enough build and knowledge of what you are doing and expect it could result in a loss so keep an eye on why you loose and if using these and you keep having issues try removing these and see if it fixes the problem.

- Random tip: Watch out for Golden fish (djinn, aka genie, makes mobs golden sometimes which buffs them... flying fish can become absurdly tanky and have obscene damage when like this so careful with build like at one of the crystals in Aquanos when concerning this so you got enough damage, or gas traps setup to handle it).

Regarding pets and Monk DPS.

Best DPS pets are typically Seahorse (insane Aquanos, don't do nightmare for this even if you have the stats typically due to roll over bug up, wave 20 reward), Megachicken (Tinkerer's Lab survival insane, wave 35 reward, is just as good as NM basically, esp cause this pet ALWAYS has 200 upgrades exactly no matter what... a good one gets 37k+ attack), good Dragon pets until you can get one of these two (not serpent, Dragon) but it is significantly weaker than the other two. There may be some other competitive ones on the newer maps released in the final update of the game but I've not heard much about them (and haven't gotten them myself since they are unnecessary at this point for me) but they are likely inferior, or at best around as good.

Note about Megachicken vs Seahorse (the two best): Megachicken has better DPS, noticeably better at that, when at melee or nearly melee range and uses its melee attack so if you can't hit a given boss/target easily at melee or lack stats to tank hits Seahorse is strictly superior on Monk then cause it is ranged (tho it spreads like a shotgun so try to be at med or close enough to dodge but not get hit. Seahorse pierces, does better range dps, and has superior spread for killing groups of mobs making it the better pet all around and Megachicken does not work on Kraken boss. There is an ultimate seahorse possible to get farming nightmare which is very powerful, however, it is so disgustingly rare it isn't worth ever trying for, nor is it really necessary as non-ult seahorses are amply good enough, to ever farm in your entire DD life... only those with basically top end stats who are obsessed with the game farm it purely for collection/min-max and no legitimate reason, just cause they are bored.

Monk has 2x scaling on pet DPS multiplier while other heroes have like 0.3 (for summoner) to like 1 or so meaning Monk has an ABSURDLY high pet scaling modifier. In addition Monk has hero boost which further boosts DPS pet damage. Retarded balance, we know. In fact, pet scaling goes up so much on Monk in Nightmare while his hero DPS gets nerfed so much that say... a typical example of Nightmare DPS on monk with an average DPS weapon and okay pet is like 24m total dps, 2-4m of that is monk dps and the rest of that 20-22m is the pet... Pet is like 90% of the typical Monk's DPS. It is possible to get valuable worthwhile Monk DPS, too, but the weapons and stats necessary for it to matter are truly top tier and pointless overkill. Towers do all the real DPS typically, and EV has largely replaced monk at end game for boss killing DPS (EV boss slayer REQUIRES Ember Staff to work properly with the proton beam or w/e its called attack, as it has 500% dmg multiplier... without this weapon it is pointless to EV DPS, non-negotiable). Barbarian gets used some for DPS but honestly it is significantly worse than Monk/EV for these tasks excluding for Genie/Dragon speed running (and used to be Goblin Ship but they seem to have put a damage cap on that boss now last I checked).

Fairy for healing is a really good pet in a map like Polybus, but otherwise unused for anything but an afk repair summoner.

Genie on Adept, or even better Jester (these two have fastest upgrade/repair speeds, but Jester is best because tankiest hero excluding barb turtle, and fastest cast speed without needing a skill like adept, and works with ranged guns). This pet converts damage dealt into a direct deposit of mana to your hero. You can literally stand there doing ranged DPS behind your walls spamming mana drop to drop thousands of mana for other players or use it to spam upgrade from safety on your towers/minions to upgrade fast. Jester can basically instant upgrade when cast stat gets decently high. Superb pet for first wave or two to upgrade build fast.

As the above said mixed mode and hardcore modifiers boost loot quality but make a map harder. Hardcore boosts exp so use it when farming exp or loot, while mixed mode only for loot on survivals. Don't need to use hardcore when beating maps to unlock next/survival. It does impact map rewards (like map completion rewards that spawn at top of screen directly into storage).

Also, survival = pure armor and pet farm only. NOT for exp and NOT for weapons. Due to roll over stat bug weapons are well known to be total garbage from survival in nightmare difficulties (maybe not completely worthless when you first get into nightmare but they very quickly become obsolete, permanently, for the rest of your DD career). Weapons are farmed from challenge and campaign map completion rewards (example: blaster gun from Tinkerer's lab campaign reward, Harpoon from that pirate bay whatever map, the map completion rewards from Moonbase and Akakiti campaign completion which are btw the two best maps for massive weapon stat boosts for builders and also have okay DPS weapons... do asap when you can handle it or if you see someone else hosting and can join, etc.) Akakiti, especially, can give weapons easily with 400+ tower stats and Moonbase also gives fishbowl (absurdly easy pet for an easy 400+ stats on a quick map run) and treadmill (arguably best pet in game and can give 700-800 stats and fast movement speed buff but requires stupid dance mini-game 42 score and requires level 100 to wear).

MASSIVE TIP: In survival if you can handle the survival without a DPS hero or tower boost monk and just use all summoners you can make PURELY armor drop. This is good because armor is what you want from survival (weapons in survival suck) and excess armor you want to sell is worth more than weapons for farming mana. This is because loot dropping is based on heroes on the field so a huntress drops ranged weapons, countess swords, and Jester everything (because he can use everything), while all summoners can't use weapons so only armor drops.

Another tip: When you can start farming coal it can sell for like 20b give or take its market value atm. Great way to make money. Also, upgrading accessories after like 35-40ish upgrades (I forget exact amount, or approx 30b worth of mana) every upgrade after is 1 mana each on that accessory. This means accessories with like 150-200 upgrades get the last 110-160 or so basically free for a nice stat growth. Good accessories later in the game from Winter Wonderland/Embermount/Temple of Love (best map for accessories) can get base stats of like 300ish + around 250 upgrades and thus three accessories that are good really add to your stats. A really really easy one to farm, however, is the Library Glasses on the library map (forget name atm) which is stupid easy even on nightmare. Note: Accessory RNG is pretty awful... farm with as many characters in split screen as you can at once and expect several runs before you get good ones because they typically spawn with lots of negative stats.

Main goal is getting 1 main tower DPS builder to level 74 then you can farm maps like Aquanos/Glitterhelm insane for exp or if you can handle it or find one to join Tavern Defense insane campaign, and best of all nightmare. NM Tav Def Campaign gives like 40+m exp per run (you CAN skip last wave entirely, boss + the normal part of final wave) to speed up exp farm as map completion rewards are trash here and the last wave is actually slow for exp given so it slows total exp farm down. A single run can easily get a single character from level 0 to above 74.

Might add more when I have time.

[Varrxion]

So I have gotten my apprentice up and have been split-screening an EV/monk (swapping between them as necessary for setups). Aquanos on hard is simple enough (minus the boss which is insanely hard), but on insane Aquanos, I just don't have the time to get everything set up properly playing alone. My main concern right now is upgrading to mythical gear and getting it isn't proving very easy. Really appreciate the tips and such though guys, sorry I didn't reply for so long, I'm still playing the game.

[Varrxion]

Also for my apprentice I've been using nessie (complete survival on deeper well). Is there any better option for a tower character? +100 on all tower stats seems too good to beat.

[Varrxion]

Alright so I started farming wave 1 of endless spires on nightmare and I'm getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of myths

[Xengre]

If you want more progression/character info and stuff I gave additional break downs in this thread. https://steamcommunity.com/app/65800/discussions/0/2269193447659236596/ Some of this may be rehash of what I already gave you here.

If you can handle Spires that is a good option tho you will need to get to around wave 20, maybe a few before it, before the real loot starts dropping for a given survival map. Once you can get decent myths from wave 20+ in Spires you can jump to either MistyMire or Aquanos NM Survival, or possibly King's Game.

Regarding the pet, there are far better pets. One really good option is if you see any players building Moonbase CAMPAIGN (NOT SURVIVAL in this specific case) they may try to get fishbowl pet which can give stats of 400-500 (might be 400-600 actually, can't remember atm) making them incredible early stat stick pets. Moonbase is unique. Campaign gives Fishbowl and Treadmill on Treadmill pet and requires hidden dance mini-game while survival gives moonpet (not worth the effort tbh, esp as Treadmill is arguably the best pet in the game... technically slightly inferior to diamond but 100x easier to get but requires level 100 so fishbowls will hold you over until you upgrade to Treadmill on Treadmill).

Alternatively, Tinkerer's Lab if someone builds it for exp, also a common one, on campaign randomly can reward pets rather frequently upon completion while giving boatloads of exp so sometimes you get good tower pets. Aquanos is probably the easiest map to do, and on insane, for survival for your first good self earned stat pet (can have 300+ stats) and also is one of the best DPS pets once you can handle it. Moonbase/Tinkerer's are definitely out of your league atm but are frequently built by others in public games and often people don't mind leeching.