Questions about guides, ogres, survival

[Shmidley]

Hi, I recently came back to the game. The last time I played was before any DLC came out. I had all the achievements in the game and 100-200 in stats from my old Godly gear. I've seen been breaking into Nightmare and I now have stats around 300/600/300/600 on an Apprentice and Summoner. I'm thinking about writing a guide based on my experiences, but there are several things I have seen in others' guides that are incredibly confusing to me.

The biggest one is guides that talk about beating the first two waves of Endless Spires being easy but wave 3 being hard because there is "an ogre." That's bogus. There are SEVERAL ogres prior to wave 3.

And I have read elsewhere about there being a handful of ogres per wave on Survival but how it drops back down to only one ogre after Survival Wave 12. Well, on Magus Quarters there are DOZENS AND DOZENS of ogres on Wave 11.

I am also confused when people talk about doing Insane Survival runs on the new maps. That's crazy. I can't even beat the new Shards maps on Insane Campaign. A simple insane mistymire campaign match has an endless horde of 2mil HP ogres that my defenses could never hope to defeat.

I'm also confused by what appear to be absolutely horrible builds people suggest for things like the above mistymire match. How are a couple of Harpoon turrets going to take down 2 mill HP ogres coming from every direction at once? How are they going to take them down during the spider boss?

I feel like I am living in bizzaro world.

[Warmonger]

1. Endless Spires got Ogre on first wave after Aquanos was released. Now I recommend Servants Quarters, which certainly will never get a single Ogre or Copter.
2. Spider Queen is badass, Genie King is much easier to manage. However, I had twice your stats when did that.
3. Harpoons will eventually kill the Ogres. The trick is to hold them forever. I suggest Ogre Crush challenge as a practive

[AeroCloud]

First off, you are still way behind in armor. Once you get to a certain point, there are a lot less options in how you build. If you have too many ogres for the defense, you need a way to passify them, usually a wall that does 0 damage to them, will make them sit there and do nothing. Put your defenses far enough behind that wall and you have awhile. Now with nightmare, those ogres sitting there dont hurt, but what happens is... Your defenses are focused on the ogre, then a shark will come charging through, or djinn will desummon the wall or other towers.

For shards maps, insane+ I recommend having squire/apprentice, huntress, monk (tower), monk (dps), EV and summoner.

Use EV for the walls and Boost beams, summoner for archers and mages. if you build a wall of archers/mages then boost them, they can work for small amounts of ogres as a wall. If there are multiple ogres, minion walls drop pretty quickly. Gas Traps help reduce the amount of enemies that make it to your walls/towers. They also fend off Djinn and Sharks for a temporary amount of time. Tower Monk is required in builds for nightmare+, Strength Drain + Lightning Aura + Ensnare Aura at all choke points where they are attacking will help your defenses last much longer. Squire/Apprentice are the fill in tower, use the extra DU with their towers.

Some of the information you are reading about is old, almost every patch they release changes how many and when something drops. So that information is probably irrelevant anymore.

[What]

Hi, I recently came back to the game. The last time I played was before any DLC came out. I had all the achievements in the game and 100-200 in stats from my old Godly gear. I've seen been breaking into Nightmare and I now have stats around 300/600/300/600 on an Apprentice and Summoner. I'm thinking about writing a guide based on my experiences, but there are several things I have seen in others' guides that are incredibly confusing to me.

The biggest one is guides that talk about beating the first two waves of Endless Spires being easy but wave 3 being hard because there is "an ogre." That's bogus. There are SEVERAL ogres prior to wave 3.

And I have read elsewhere about there being a handful of ogres per wave on Survival but how it drops back down to only one ogre after Survival Wave 12. Well, on Magus Quarters there are DOZENS AND DOZENS of ogres on Wave 11.

I am also confused when people talk about doing Insane Survival runs on the new maps. That's crazy. I can't even beat the new Shards maps on Insane Campaign. A simple insane mistymire campaign match has an endless horde of 2mil HP ogres that my defenses could never hope to defeat.

I'm also confused by what appear to be absolutely horrible builds people suggest for things like the above mistymire match. How are a couple of Harpoon turrets going to take down 2 mill HP ogres coming from every direction at once? How are they going to take them down during the spider boss?

I feel like I am living in bizzaro world.

You may be misreading things. And/or misunderstanding. My harpoons do ~30k per shot in Nightmare, up to 90k when 3* and buffed with a 3* buff beam (Non-active). My Countess has over 2k tower attack. The few towers can take down an Ogre because Ogres are dumb, Mobs are being held back and killed off by traps an auras, and players assist in killing Ogres. The 90k per shot, even 30k can add up quickly against, say, 30 mil HP.

Ogres can be beaten fairly easily since you can make them stand at your walls and observe the expert craftsmanship by placing your Harpoons/Magic Missiles/Bowlers/Fireballs/Minions just a little bit out of his whacking range. He want to get to the source of damage, but can't. He's blocked by the wall but is too dumb to attack the wall. Practice on Ogre Crush, Maybe?

Now, the calming down after wave 12 thing is referring to Mistymire. From waves 9-12 in NM Survival on that map, you'll have a bunch of Ogres incoming. After 12, it'll calm for a few waves.

Also, you're likely understatted, or are using a bad build. Make sure you're using all building character's towers at your disposal! This means Traps, Auras, Squire buildings, and Apprentice buildings! If you have EV as well, use her! Her walls can help you save DU as well as being somewhat tanky. The buff beams are amazing, and Reflects are great. Also, try to make your builds compact. Especially in Mistymire, and in Nightmare in general. Since spiders are spawning, and the have set drop points with a very minor deviation from that spot, you'll want to reduce their total available drop points inside your base, and use as little DU as possible on them.

Now, for the bosses, You'll definitely want a dedicated DPS character out there. Monk works very well since you can hero and Tower boost. Give him a good pet, like a seahorse, and you can dominate Ogres and bosses. A good DPS pet and character is very much needed for the Shards maps if you want to pass without much frustration. Especially while solo.

And most of the info you may have read is outdated, unfortunately.

[Shmidley]

Okay. Everything you guys are saying has fit neatly in with my experiences. I am already using builds that use the concepts you are putting forth, although I still need to refine them a lot (and keep upgrading and replacing gear of course).

What I find amusing is that most of the guides out there talk about doing Insane Mistymire Survival up to wave 20+ as a matter of course, as if a player with 100-200 stats could do that easily. And yet three people now have said that my current (600/300) stats are far too low to be doing such things.

That seems especially weird, though. Why would anyone ever do Insane Mistymire Survival if its that hard? I can't imagine the drops are very good compared to the drops in Nightmare levels.

[Rand0m1zat10n]

The only reason people do insane Shards survivals are for breaking into NM/exp farming.

[Warmonger]

^He didn't understand either, lol.

Mistymire survival on insane won't give you any useful reward. Moraggo and Aquanos, however, drop decent pets. The last one also drops myth gear at wave 20+. Lots of it.
I don't remember any guide mentioning misty insane survival. Where did you find that tip?

[Shmidley]

I have been finding most of my information by googling "Insane Nightmare Progression"

From the dungeon defenders wiki

You're going to need to start working on Survival mode. Start with Alchemical Laboratory survival on insane (ensure hardcore mode is activated), and see how far you get. If you make wave 20+, then try Ramparts or Summit. If you can clear those, try Mistymire or Moraggo , and so on.

The moderator Alhanahelm also has posted things in new player threads like this one:

Newer maps on Insane have mythical drops- both in high wave survival, and some challenge rewards. Use these to help bridge the gap. It's not really that hard anymore. With a strong Insane character, you should at least be able to to do the early campaign levels on Nightmare, which can also get your foot in the door.

[iamisom]

Probably in CrzyRndm's Nightmare guide.

[Shmidley]

Oh yea, that guide also mentions it.

When you start into nightmare, you really want to be level 74, so you can equip myths as soon as you get them. At this point I wasn't, so I decided to have a go at misty survival. I made it to W20 with a few changes to the campaign build, and it was a fun and rewarding challenge (ogres go back to one per wave after wave 12, which has 4). 9 million XP from W5 to W20, a mythical pet each time I ran it, and some reasonable gear (I won't be using the gear though).

And he says he wasn't even level 74 yet. So he couldn't have been wearing mythicals. Which meant he had 200-300 stats at best. And he says he got to wave 20 on Misty with a link to this build. I am extremely suspicious as to how that could be possible. I could always go ahead and just try out the exact build he says he used (and I'd be using Mythical decked characters to boot).