Where is the beginner guide?

[Tman]

Holy crap, I played original DW and this new version is trying to be Gemcraft (if you haven't played Gemcraft, it's one of the best TD's ever).

The thing with Gemcraft is there are tons of guides, tutorials, etc that go into the depths of the game. This game OTOH, is as sparse as a one legged horse in the middle of a desert and I mean that in a bad way. The "pro tips" are pathetic. They are no more "pro" than the first 3 letters of Prop.

Here is just a portion of what I would expect in some sort of guide and you can treat these as questions that I and others most likely have. For those of you with tons of hours into this, I'm sure you had these questions but had way more patience than I do.

1. This transmuting thing / items:
1a. I'm getting tier 5 now, and have never had 9 of anything of tier 1-4 to combine. Ever. How do I get more of a lower tier? Maybe I don't want anymore how can I get rid of the lower ones?
1b. Speaking of lower ones, there are 3 tabs, is there a way to move things to these tabs or do they just fill up when the 1st one is full?

2. When I have a choice, and this game gives me more choices than if a subway and a pizza joint were one, what is the best thing to choose between Rarity / Quantity / Skill / Gems / +1 to a stat / OMFG I can't even begin to remember all the choices. I tend to take Gems because I'm so low level, and then skill and then trap mastery +1, but I can see where once it takes > 10 gems to upgrade a trap, +1 mastery might be better? But skills should always be taken first?

3. How can I stop diggers? Right now, when diggers show up, I just punt and assume that dirt is all going to be gone because no amount of "here is where the path will be for everyone except for flyers and diggers and those adventurers that can cross gaps". BTW - what enemies haven't I seen yet that will ignore paths?

4. Ditto with those thieves that will slip by my demons without even fighting? They're supposed to have low HP but holy smokes I think something is broken because they can take a ton of damage. I try burning up front but that just seems to make them run faster.

5. Runes - you know, screw these stupid things. I only go back and use them when I'm +2 levels above some map I previously cleared as the first time through, I'm just trying to clear the map. I see how they give me more XP, but XP don't mean crap if I can't clear the map. I'm assuming that I should just ignore these on any map unless it's to go back and redo a map to grind XP.

6. When did the grabby pully things (harpoons?) get so friggen weak? I've upgraded them to 10 level and they rarely pull anything. It just acts like a rubber band that eventually breaks.

7. I read some tip some guy was trying to give on some map and he kept talking "synergy" and I take that as "get as may runes together than complement a trap as possible" to get your trap damage up to +30-50% and spam that trap all over the map.

8. Where is the friggen easy button? The only thing easy on this game is to grind a map 4-5 times before I can clear it, get some meager skills, go to another map of the same level and rinse and repeat and for heaven's sake, stay away from any map that is +1 more than the lowest map I haven't completed.

9. Speaking of maps, how can I look at a map on the map chart thingy and tell which maps I haven't got all the bonus stuff with? I see that maps look frayed if I haven't got the flawless check mark and I see the weapon on the map changes depending upon how many runes I ran it with, but I can't for the life of me tell "hey which map was I needing 2.0 modifyer on XP that I skipped a few hours ago?"

10. With so many maps, and so many traps, what is the best strategy to upgrade which traps. Right now, I'm trying everything but the kitchen sink and I'd throw that into the mix if it was an included trap. Should I be resetting everything and bumping up the traps I'm using to as high as I can? That seems like a lot of extra work. Right now, I have a few traps at 10, most are at 5 and I'm unlocking everything and playing monkey at a dart board. This feels sub optimal.

Well, I have a ton more questions, but as it is, this is a TLDR "get gud" and I have no friggen idea how to get gud even though I played the heck out of the original DW.

WHERE IS THE BEGINNER GUIDE THAT WOULD ANSWER THESE AND MORE??

TIA!

[StevenThrasher]

Welcome Tman to enjoying this crazy addictive game.

Fantastic idea on the beginner guide. Wish there were one too. I've played this game a lot but I'm sure I'd still learn a lot from one.

I'll take a crack at answering your specific questions.

1a.
You don't have to combine items of the same tier but they must be of the same rarity (background color).

Here is what you can do with transmutation:

- Three common (black background) items on top row -> a random new common item of the average of tiers of the three items

- Nine common (black background) items -> a random new common item of the average of tiers of the nine items + 1 tier better

- Nine common (black background) UNIDENTIFIED items -> a random new uncommon (blue background) item of the average of tiers of the nine items (and maybe + 1 tier I'm not sure)

These same 3 things can be done for uncommon (blue background), and rare (yellow background). (most importantly 9 unidentified rare items gets you a unique item)

For unique items (brown background):

- Three unique items on top row -> a random new unique item of the average of tiers of the three items

- Nine unique items -> the grotesque endeavor. The grotesque endeavor uses 4 or 5 of the powers randomly chosen from the nine unique items. As only one of any type unique item can be equipped at a time this new item can let you double up some powerful unique skills.

The most useful of transmuting is:
Nine uncommon -> an unidentified rare
Nine unidentified rare -> unique item.

So in particular later in the game it pays not to identify the items (especially the rare items)

1b. They will fill up when the first one is full. You can also move items between the pages by placing them in the transmute tab (or less conveniently your equipped items) then switching pages and dragging them out.


2. In order of preference (Rarity, Quantity, +1(or more) mastery of a trap that you would want past level 15, Skill or gems, gold multiplier

Note for a trap that you have at level 100 adding +1 to a mastery of that trap is equivalent to 100 gems.

Traps like slime, barricade, shockwave generator, teleporter you rarely want past level 15 so you should never take the +1 mastery for those.
Your big damage traps like Chakram if that is your go to trap you want to level up as much as possible so these are ones where trap mastery as a bonus can be worth a lot

3. I rarely try to stop diggers. You just place barricades in anticipation that the dirt will be removed at some point in the game. Look at the map without the dirt and that is how you should generally plan for it to be. Also sometimes it makes sense to use the shockwave generator to get rid of dirt where it is a hindrance. Then in some cases you can place a barricade there to give the diggers no path.

4. I don't really use any of the minion type traps so I can’t really comment.

5. Yes screw the runes. The permanent ones are useful. 99% of the time you can just forget about the other runes unless there is an objective you are trying to make that has an experience multiplier (there is one where 5X is an objective)

6. Some swear by them at high levels but I don't use them other than at early levels when the map screams out for them and you have few options.

7. Generally you want to level up one trap as much as possible preferably through items, then just spam it yes. But there are other strategies like what I'm about to mention for #8

8. To me the easy button is to boost "Singularity" in the Elite skill tree as much as you can. Basically spend all of your skill points on it. In the map use barricades to make a choke point where all enemies have to go through and place only one of every trap you can at that choke point and upgrade them. They will reload so fast that they each count as multiple traps, but only cost you one. Gold doesn't become much of a problem. This is the easiest way to play the game. Also if you are lucky enough there is also a unique item (Verdant Loops) that increases the trap count limit by 1 making things twice as easy.

9. You can hover the mouse pointer over each map. The dots in front of each objective are either red or green. If they are not all green you still have an objective on that map you haven't done.

10. Early in the game the dart trap is very useful. Once you get Chakram boost the crap out if it and use that as your main weapon. If you use the "singularity" strategy then you want to have a good balance of 3 or 4 key damage traps and the freezing trap. Later on when you get the axe trap it is incredibly good boosted at a choke point with the "singularity" skill boosted. Getting traps to 15 unlocks tier 3 traits which are generally very useful and powerful. Remember you can completely rebalance the trap levels to suit the map and objectives. You never permanently spend gems.

Enjoy.
ST

[Tman]

Wow, ST, this is excellent! Thanks for taking the time to write all that down. Very clearly stated.

BTW - using your advice, I was able to go back and it turns out if I do older maps at say Tier 2, I get Tier 2 items, so I can do more transmutations.

I also went back and reset all my traps and set several to level 15 and that was a world of difference. It enabled me to clear a lot of maps. I reached level 30 and was able to do some endless ones as well. I like how the game allows you to continue where you left off so you don't have to start from scratch.

I was going to ask about Wrath level, but then I see that if I mouse over the waves, it tells me and that you have to not only release the next wave, but it must "hit the bottom" before the red bar is all the way gone. One of the levels had a bonus "complete the level at Wrath level 6", which took me several tries to get it right.

I'll have to try the singularity. I was focusing on Gold up until now.

Thanks again for your responses!

[Tman]

Ok, a few more hours and a lot more questions / comments. I'm now up to level 47.

Is it me or is the grinder pretty much worthless on it's own without a demon blocking for it? I upgraded this to level 15, and even with 3 tier upgrades, the darn thing just won't spin up. One creep steps on it, and it jams. When I had demons in front of it, they are a veritable killing machine. Not sure if a bug or by design. I had a few sucessful runs where you can do the option where the capacity grows on # of kills but that was with demons. Now i'm running w/out any minions, and they might get a few early kills, but once the waves start in earnest, they just sit there idle.

Harpoons are still friggen worthless. I can't believe how bad these are in this release compared to the original DW. It would be nice if someone can be the cheering section here & enlighten us on how to use it if at all.

Man the upgrade to the portal so it can deal some damage is a life saver. For trying to get those perfect runs, especially in the early stages when you're just barely putting together a kill box and have spent way too much on barricades, it's worth its weight in gold. Once you've amassed quite the fortune of starting gold, it's a great way to compound it so you can forgo spending on the first few waves by just bombing the creeps and letting the portal take care of stragglers. For those beginners reading this, get this upgrade on the skill tree.


I don't get what the etheral maps are for. They disappear once you finish them - even with one heart, so I'm sitting on a ton of these wondering when / how I need to approach these. There seems to be something special about them, but as before, the documentation is sparse.

I'm really hating the wrath levels. It's too picky trying to time it so the box hits the bottom before the red line runs out and it's very dangerous to just hit it six times at the end of the map. I saw a very old comment by the developer saying they'd add an option in the future to help this, but I don't see any option?? Am I missing it or did they decide to punt on adding it?

Besides the above, still a great game. Love the sound design and the maps are very creative.

[omniocean]

Thank you for the helpful post, I am also a new player and found the information lacking so far, the only guide here (on lightning traps) is super updates and not that good tbh. This game definitely deserves more attention.

My best strat so far is to setup a choke zone with black hole + spin trap to completely block the passage, and ice for freeze /fire for debuff, then kill with either axe or chakram. Managed to rush all levels on maps so far. Would love to hear other people's strats.

Also on mobile version, just found out if you press & hold a rune or item it will automatically fill the transmute box for you, not sure why that wasn't advertised in game is insanely good. Still trying to find out how to enable 4x speed though, is that just a myth lol.

[omega]

Originally posted by Tman:

I don't get what the etheral maps are for. They disappear once you finish them - even with one heart, so I'm sitting on a ton of these wondering when / how I need to approach these. There seems to be something special about them, but as before, the documentation is sparse.

You can get more loot/exp for completing them (useful when you're stuck on another map), but they're mostly there to hide the off-the-grid-maps. These are hidden from the normal progress of unlocking maps and are only temporarily uncovered when you beat an etheral map next to them.

Originally posted by omniocean:

Still trying to find out how to enable 4x speed though, is that just a myth lol.

At least on PC the 4x speed is activated when double clicking on the fast.forward-button.

[StevenThrasher]

Hey TMan you are most welcome.

Grinder I don't find works very well as you mention. I haven't put much into it. Maybe others here have a strategy where it is effective.

As to ethereal maps as omega said they have really two purposes
1. To allow you to reveal maps that are off the main pathways. You can't complete all the steam achievements without finding and completing those maps.
2. When the maps on the main pathways are getting too hard you can level up with some Ethereal maps. These can also be really good for item farming (then transmuting them into something really good). These level layouts are auto generated and are generally easier at the same tier than the hand crafted main maps.

The wrath timing is difficult I find as well. You just have to concentrate on it. You only have to do this for "survive a level 6 wrath" objective.

For the rush all waves objective you don't have to have any wrath enabled. You can wait the red timer has expired. You just have to click before the level bar makes all the way to the bottom. This also requires concentration. Especially for 60+ waves. One miss and you don't get the objective.
One other thing that helps here is that you can build/upgrade/delete traps while paused. This can really help on a wrath or rush all waves level.


And omniocean thanks:
That lineup of traps is a very good one and what I use typically. The black hole trap I don't upgrade to the last tier. The spinblade trap I always place adjacent (next trap after) the black hole trap. You can focus on knockback upgrades to keep the enemies from advancing and keep them back in the blackhole trap. the darts as the last upgrade on the spinblade is quite useful too. I also like to direct the freezing trap to spray on top of the black hole trap, and use icecap wind, deep freeze, and shatter as the upgrades. If you have a lot of skill points on singularity, all three of those traps work far more effectively and you can freeze most of the troops indefinately. If you have several frozen troops all together when a couple die at the same time it starts a chain reaction that kills all the enemies in the area.

I have the PC and mobile versions and can confirm that on PC you can do 2x and 4x speeds but you can only do 2x speed on the mobile version.

[Killcreek2]

Originally posted by omniocean:

My best strat so far is to setup a choke zone with black hole + spin trap to completely block the passage, and ice for freeze /fire for debuff, then kill with either axe or chakram. Managed to rush all levels on maps so far. Would love to hear other people's strats.

I do something similar for narrow chokepoints: black hole in front (+range), then spike-burn (or slime-nohealpoison), spinblade (bleed vs battering rams, dart vs fast hordes), then a lightning just behind (stun / more bounces).
Ice-boom / fire-debuff covering the front, axes near the spinblade / black hole, sometimes exploding demons / burn liches parked just behind the spinblade on the lightning, and usually a bolt trap right at the back pointing through the kill zone toward the black hole with knockback & penetrate-20 ult (assuming there is a convenient wall / barricade location).
Placing a soul harvester near the kill zone helps too (cash farm or -% health degradation AoE).
Example pic.[i.imgur.com]


On more open maps that lack good chokepoints, I find rockets are rather helpful when built in a small pack ~ especially if paired with +range black holes (surrounded by slime) to make the enemies bunch up & maximise the AoE splash coverage from the rockets. Then some long-range wall traps covering the black holes to add insult.
Kind of a "make your own chokepoint" plan, but without using destructible barricades.


Regarding runes:
Blood (start with 1 life, perm) - is a nice one to use for first-run on each map, as it makes you automatically qualify for a "flawless" victory when you win, so you get the +10% xp from flawless and another +30% xp from the rune itself.
Pressure (+10 dwarves each wave, 1-use) - seems to be useful if you can setup a good kill zone near a spawn point, as their death-explosion damage scales with map / endless wave difficulty (combos nicely with freeze-boom).

[omega]

Originally posted by omniocean:

Would love to hear other people's strats.

I use the dart trap when beginning a map, upgrading it with the 1% per kill, the 30% more damage and the double dart upgrade. It might take a while to get to the 500% damage buff, but combined with slime traps (no healing, 50% slow, and one withering on the entrance) and cold traps (double slowing upgrade and shatter) it works out. I use consumables (bombs + ice or fear) to defend the area between chokepoint and dungeoncore and place black holes (rearm buff, dislocation) together with cold traps and flamethrowers (longer burn duration) when the dart trap has stacked to max damage.

[Tman]

So when I complete a challenge or a map for first time, I get to choose one of a random # of things. Two of those are 1% increase in Qty or 1% increase in Rarity.

Where can I see my total accumulation of these %'s? I've picked them a lot but then I was wondering hey, how much do I have in total and can't seem to find it?

[Tman]

I found how to see this - go to the overall map and mouse over your level.

[Tman]

So at the end of my 1st ascension, I decided to write a beginner guide.

You can read it here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1896889394

[Killcreek2]

Originally posted by Tman:

So at the end of my 1st ascension, I decided to write a beginner guide.

Nice one! :D
I proof-read it & made some notes for you (roughly in reading order):

Portals / Paths: you can click the exit portal to display all paths at once (I often spam-click a half-dozen times for a nice view). You can also mouse-over the wave bar on the left, and it will highlight the path(s) that wave will take ~ especially useful for an upcoming wave with flying enemies in it.

Wrath: "this only counts when you end the last wave at this wrath level" ~ this seems to be incorrect. I have managed to complete those objectives in the middle of the run. The key thing is that the wrath level must be that high when a wave spawns, then the wrath must stay at that level (or higher) until ALL of that wave are completely eliminated. once that wave is cleared, you can let the wrath timeout & finish the run however you like.

Repeated typo: "respect" (to admire / honour) is used frequently, but should be "re-spec" (short for "re-specify the selection") ~ found in Mastery section 1; & the Skills intro paragraph.

Items section ~ "the cliff notes is" ~ what the hell does that mean? Assuming you are not referring to the "extra abyssal cliffs" that can spawn on ethereal maps, as that has noting to do with transmutation... is this a local idiom or slang phrase? (Probably should re-word it into common english, as idioms do not translate & just produce confusion in foreign readers. Ain't nobody got time to google every random idiom / slang phrase / meme.)

Readability suggestion: instead of writing in CAPITALS, try using the [b]Bold[/b] (or [i]Italic[/i]) tags. (CAPITALS = "shouty", bold = "emphasis".)

Flying enemies ~ bolt traps are actually not bad, if there is a narrow long corridor and you have the "penetrate 20" ultimate upgrade available (works well with knockback & lightning rod). Axes are also helpful at any chokepoints (the raw damage is often enough to 1-shot a flyer, or critically injure multiple with +damage & burn).

Tips section:
the consumable hotkeys are clearly listed in the options menu: you could have found them there before even starting the first map. (I always check options menus for hoykeys before playing a new game, so found them immediately).

Putting traps near the entrance is ok, if that is the only entrance, or each entrance has a natural chokepoint / killzone you can abuse. Otherwise, funneling them to a kill-zone still seems better to me. (Opinions will always differ for trap placement, so try to avoid "telling the reader what to do" (it is a bit insulting) ~ instead just tell / show them some alternatives & let them choose for themselves.)


Thanks for the guide, hope this feedback is useful. (Was going to post it in the guide comments, but steam has character limits there...)


edit spotted another mistake. Mastery section last line: "if you have a +3 next to a map, you just saved ..." ~ should be "next to a trap".
edit2 somehow missed the typo in the guide description (pre-intro?) ~ "labrynth" should be "labyrinth"

[Tman]

Hey thanks for going through it and suggesting changes.

[Jacowboy]

Wait there's some weird info in here... you say only 1 unique can be equiped, but I can clearly equip several different ones... =/

Was there a patch recently?

[Killcreek2]

Originally posted by Jacowboy:

Wait there's some weird info in here... you say only 1 unique can be equiped, but I can clearly equip several different ones... =/

Was there a patch recently?

I think that is referring to equipping multiple copies of the same unique item (not multiple different uniques).