Early Guide to reach NG+10 and beyond

Just some tips, tricks, findings, and a bad google sheet you can use to plan for higher NG+!

General Starting Tips

• Buy whatever shows up to clear early waves
  
• Get just enough firepower to reach 50 gold ASAP
  
• Don't spend past 50 unless you're literally about to die
  
• Keep buying random towers to minimize your tower Re-Roll costs
  
• Level up low-level towers to LV 2 if given the opportunity, even if you'll sell them later
  
• Save your gold for Item Re-Rolls
  
• Only buy useful items unless you'll go below 50 gold
  
• Pay attention to your Shop LV before spamming tower Re-Rolls for a specific tower
  
• Hero and Spearman are worth going to LV 3 if you find them
  
• Start buying your preferred towers as you go when it's safe to swap them in
  
• Any build should work if you play to maximize gold and your best items

Let me reiterate:
Any build should work if you play to maximize gold and to get the best items for your build

You should at least reach NG+5 doing this before you may need to pre-plan your towers and items due to the sheer number of towers that are available to you.

Use This Google Sheet (it is not pretty, beware)

Not sure if links will make Steam angry, but this is my rough and dirty spreadsheet to plan builds.

Just make a copy of it so you can use it and fix whatever looks ugly. If there's demand enough, I might consider making it even prettier (or if someone wants to give a cleaner version for us to use, feel free to comment!)

Click--->https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19s1qiqttwmrXaht5Upfhk1vK20ccT6FdP6BJU-RjlHM/edit?usp=sharing

With this, you can enter the towers you want, select your items (even if it's more than 10 in case you are unlucky), and then you will at least have a basic comp builder that will tell you what your synergies will be and what the item effects are--and you can track your progress as you get the towers and items you wanted.

This is very rough, but the comp builder alone should be helpful for many.

Even if you don't use this, I would still plan out your NG+ once you hit a brick wall with just going with the flow, especially for items!

Observations (Subject to Change/Get Nerfed)

The 4 Mythic Bonus might be important for high NG+

• Mostly because Wyvern (and Yeti with any chill) scale well
  
• You get another tower in exchange for 2 OP towers and 2 meh towers, all with their class synergies to add
  
• If your build uses any of the classes in Mythic, consider going 4 Mythic
  
• The "Unique" item stacks really well at high NG+ once you start going past 12 towers or so
  
• One of the meh towers, Devil, will start to scale well with enough tower slots when you can fit Evil Eye in without hurting your build

You won't get past 20 minutes with current balance as of 1.1.2 (and that's ok)

The changes made in 1.1.0 have drastically changed the scaling of the game. If you played before this where the game was "won" at 30 minutes, you're going to be in for a surprise!

Right now, either due to HP and enemy count scaling or just the game's ability to keep up with itself, you will drop to 0 frames and you will probably die soon after crossing the 20 minute finish line.

Here's to hoping for future patches to at least help with the drop to 0 frames madness of billions of damage going out all at once!

(I'm guessing the game starts giving up calculating everything before it lets the enemies just crash into you)

Any Build (probably) Works!

Just keep in mind that some classes are just built different.

You will probably only get use out of most classes when you get their items or you build a strong comp that shares good units with good class bonuses.

You may want to consider building around your favorite tower or two, then find good Class Bonuses and Items that would make them even better.

Items that buff all units for each tower of a class are NG+ OP

As you get more room for towers, consider things like Haze, Dueling, and Inspire if your build can squeeze lots of that class in without losing much.

For example, Dexterity buffs all towers by 20% attack speed, but Haze with 4 Wind is just as good (so why not use both?)--I like to run 8 or 9 Wind for a juicy 40%+ attack speed (aka cooldown reduction).

They don't do much at low NG+ unless you are just spamming all from that class, but NG+5 and beyond will often use these Items well! Just make sure it says something like "all units" in its text!

Class Bonuses (and most class items) are classist!

As far as I can tell, unless it literally tells you "all units" on it, the buff probably doesn't affect towers outside of the class listed on that item. The same goes for the class bonuses for having 2 or 3 or more of a kind. Keep this in mind when planning your build and especially while playing!

****

Is it a bug that bonuses are restricted (or aren't restricted when they should be)? I have heard that the class bonuses do apply to towers not in its class, but I can't recreate it. For example, there is the comment to this guide that they get more range from the Shadow class for non-Shadow towers.

Let me know if you discover bonuses working outside of their class.

Here's what I got in 1.1.2 after reading the comment about bonuses working outside of the Shadow class. Can you tell a difference?
With 2 Shadow:

With 4 Shadow:

Some Thoughts (1.1.2)

The game feels like it wants you to lose after 20 minutes despite the nerf to enemies, likely due to something else holding back the game from keeping up with all the damage (or something else related to the 0 FPS that ensues). I miss going past 30 minutes when it was mostly enemies going faster and faster. Back then, I got just past 60 minutes several times (and the timer went back to 00:00).

I love that the tower cap was removed again! It feels balanced enough because you will be punished for playing too slow or greedily, and there is a real limit to how many towers you can cram into the center. And now that the tower stacking bug is gone, you really have to organize your towers with the tankier guys out on the edges!

Instead of just more enemies as 20 minutes comes and goes (and the FPS crashes), I wish they were a little tougher and/or faster instead of 4 times as many. The game should be controllable at least until 20 minutes, but from minute 14 it already starts going off the deep end (at least on higher NG+s).

Microing towers around with wait is a real thing that can extend your run, but it's not very fun! Before the tower cap was removed again, back from 1.1.0 to 1.1.1, I had to run all tanky bois and pause the game constantly to swap around the damage until I could get everyone to level 3 and have all the items I needed. Some micro is cool, but maybe not that much just to win a NG+9 with only NG+5 number of towers!

Saving to 50 ASAP and greeding for item rerolls while buying just enough feels like the only early and mid-game strategy for NG+. I don't hate this, but I don't think there's any other way to do well without saving up as much gold as you can while clearing stuff. You will need it to get actually useful items and still have time to level up most of your team to level 3 before the 15 minute mark.

I really like buying towers I won't need later and balancing the gold spent if they carry my butt for 10 minutes. Hero, Spearman, Wizard, even Buccaneer--to name a few.

Some towers feel like absolute dog unless you make the universe support them. I'm looking at you, Summoners!

Warriors and Wind (and Mythic perhaps) are probably busted and easy to win with compared to the others. I don't think it's just the individual towers (though Arctic Knight and Solar Knight have insane scaling, for example). But the items and the Class Bonuses are just bonkers for them!

Tower Thoughts (1.1.2)

Chainers probably don't scale well even with their items.
I haven't tested Pirates but after the gold nerfs, maybe beware of them.
Controllers are great, especially on lower NG+.
Arcane is probably fine, Shadow is fine I hear, and Summoners are probably okay with their items bought early enough.
Support is like Mythic for me: Half of them are probably insane, but the others are meh. But you don't really have to go for 4 Support imo.
Guardian is funny if you're trying to clear a higher NG+ but you can't fit more towers in (like in 1.1.1), but feels worse than just killing them faster--and you better start pausing and microing your towers because taunt will get them killed!
Duelist is great as a second class to buff your others, but is too small to build around imo. Still probably fine.
I haven't dared try Blaze...it doesn't look NG+ friendly at all, but I could be wrong.
Frost holds a special place in my heart, but it's probably not worth going for 4 of them unless you're at a lower NG+ or you want to challenge yourself. The chill effect doesn't really scale very well since it stops around 35-55% even with all the things you can add to it.

"Infinite" scaling damage like Solar and Arctic Knight (who are both Warriors, by the way). Scaling off of numbers of enemies will probably always be broken the way the game is currently scaled. Controllers with their Exterminate are also on my radar, but they haven't quite proven to be obscenely busted, yet.
*Lich may be in this category as well, but it didn't perform when I tried it a while back. Necromancer should fit here in theory, too.

Individual Towers

Great Towers in Any Build:
Solar Knight - was OP, still OP I bet
Arctic Knight - is way more OP with 1 AOE chill like Blizzardess (at least higher NG+)!
Blizzardess - is my best friend. Chill on the entire field, gives me bonus 25% damage with Frostbite. And I've seen her get to the top of charts that don't have the other OP towers in them!
Yeti & Wyvern - are busted for just having raw aoe damage! You don't even need Uniqueness to get some great damage, but it helps
Hero & Spearman (and even Wizard) - put in work for level 1 towers! Sometimes Buccaneer keeps up for a bit, but he falls off by mid-game. Hero and Spearman never really fall off!
Wind Caster & Battle Mage - are amazing if you find them early on (and they do well later, too).
Scarecrow & Tempest - are lifesavers! They, along with Frost towers with big aoe, help CC the clumps of enemies while you dps them down.

Devil - may suffer from a lack of range without going hard Shadow...but it seems using Evil Eye and being in NG+10 or higher might activate this tower where it can keep up with the others above due to high enemy density. (Thank you to comments for more info on this tower!)

Felt Really Weak Outside of Their Build:
Birdkeeper - is another Wind for my 5% attack speed from Haze for me, probably requires full Summoner
Prisoner - is great for about 3 minutes, then it feels like a waste of a spot unless you go pure Chainers (and even then).
Lich - felt weak without Chainer, may still function in high NG+ and scale but it didn't seem to be worth the slot if not built around.

All of Blaze, Chainer, Pirate, Shadow, and Summoner feel kinda meh besides a few specific towers at best.

(Maybe a OP When Built Around Section?)

I might fill this in later if I decide to talk about towers that only shine within their build or when catered to with more than 1 tower or 1 item bought for them.

Item Thoughts (1.1.2)

Standout Items

OP?
Dexterity - a must
Execution - a must
Power - a must
Sabotage - probably a must? I don't know how much enemies get armor, but armor pen is OP
Threat Zone - a must on higher NG+ when things really clump right next to you (unless the zone is comically small, I have no clue)
Haze - use if you have 3+ Wind and no other items required or if 6+ Wind always
Inspire - use if you have 2 Supports unless you must get another item instead
Dueling - use if you splash in even 2 Duelists and have room, imo
Frostbite - if you run a chill aoe like Yeti or especially Blizzardess, use this
Uniqueness - must if you run 4 Mythic
Tailwind - must if you run even 4 Wind even if they are a secondary, especially with Wyvern and Sky Maiden

Might be weak:
First Strike - a trap for high NG+ because you rarely 1-shot, and random low damage will waste the bonus 30% more often than not
Royal Oath - let your 2 Bonus Guardians taunt if anything, and even then taunt kills more towers than it protects, imo

Getting literally all of the Minion Items or not will probably make or break a mostly Summoner build.

Screenshots (1.1.2)

NG+10 right at the win time:

The loss screen:

The final damage chart:

The stats screen:

1.1.3 Comments

The game is still impossible after 20 minutes on higher NG+ despite the nerfs, could be due to the game having issues calculating everything as it goes below 1 FPS until you die from frame-jumping enemies.

The damage tracker for the last 15 seconds is great for seeing how your towers are doing...and Arctic Knight is a monster in damage right before death after 20 minutes! It can do half your total damage with ease if you have something else applying chill with it...but you will die soon so it doesn't really matter.

Maybe there is a need to explore builds that one-shot and that don't have exponential calculations like Arctic Knight to survive past 22 minutes?

Imp is now as good as Buccaneer and Wizard while you form your build, so level it to 3 if you happen to see them.

Will check back in after another update!

-Alex

[-shhfiftyfive]

what i came up with
1+ warden, 1+ fairy, 1 devil, 1 wyvern, 3+ phoenix.

extra wardens for more armor, extra fairies for more heals, extra phoenix for more damage and 360 coverage.

every 5 levels just choose bonuses that would do more damage for all, any related to fire/burn, slow enemy, armor for all, heal over time for all, friendly support gives all attack speed, mythic bonus...

[1leonardlucius]

although i agree its weak outside of a chill build, lich is a must if you're going chill. if paired with blizzardess or artic knight it will hit every enemy, every shot.

[BAR2]

I just use anything I can to start and then split off to focusing on controllers as main units and mythicals for support

[retroPacifist]

@Alex i ended up getting there, thanks anyways! literally just minion only build hard carried through the entirety of up to NG+10

[Alex]

@retroPacifist

I haven't played in a while, but I believe the game also hasn't been updated since I last played.
You must survive the first 20 minutes to unlock NG+/the next NG+. You unlock +1 tower slot for each NG+ level you've survived. These screenshots are around the NG+10 and beyond.

@metalfan666

I haven't seen a max NG+, but I stopped at NG+13. Looking at community content, it seems some people are at least hitting NG+23. I bet these require some less-interesting comps with lots of duplicate towers, but I can't confirm this other than my experience with beating NG+9 with NG+5's tower limit tells me that you probably have to exploit the game or abuse only the best towers to the point of spamming the same few (especially if you have 20+ tower slots).

[oomfie!?]

are you aware what the highest ng+ anyone has gotten to is? I've made it to ng+16 and im not sure if 17 onward is even possible, its def not for me at my current skill level

[retroPacifist]

how do you have so many towers in these screenshots? i can only make it up to 10 minutes, not even in NG at all

[Mike]

If you get the item that makes your summons explode in an area then the summons build is very strong. The tier 3 necromancer being 2-3 times stronger than anyone else.

[Alex]

Oh, did it cover armor pen enough? I must have missed that. Glad it helped : )

[Lamp]

Thank you! Also it does talk about armor pen in num7 and answers my question.