Dungeon Defenders: Awakened – Leveling Guide (1-100)

A guide to help players get from level 1-100!

Level 1-70

Note: Credit goes to Havrix

If you have never played a Dungeon Defenders game before the start can be a little overwhelming. To start make sure you make one of each hero and add them to your hero deck. The hero’s in the hero deck will level at the same time. You will want one of each hero so you can build all the different defenses in the game.

1. Campaign clear on Medium:

I suggest starting on medium, it should be pretty easy but it gives you time to understand how your defenses all work. It also gives you time to figure out what hero you like the most.

2. Campaign clear on Hard:

Once you have finished medium it is time to dive into hard. Depending if you have played a Dungeon Defenders game before or not this could also be pretty easy. This is where you might start getting some gear that has some stats on it. This is also where you might want to pick a hero to do some damage on.

3. Getting ready for Insane

This is where most people start to struggle a little so if you do don’t give up. There is a few things you might want to do before starting insane.

Get gear with defense stats on it. At a lower level this will most likely be the Miner set. You also want to make sure you have a full set of gear on ( four piece) because you will get a 40% buff to stats.

Choose a DPS hero and level up the weapon for it. Most people pick Apprentice because it is easy to get a decent weapon. Upgrade the weapons projectiles and speed as much as possible then put the rest in damage. (range damage if monk).

Most of your stats will still come from your hero points at this point of the game so place them where you think you need them. For a monk maybe you need more aura range so put points there. For huntress maybe you need more changes on your traps so put it in fortify. At lower levels you should be use points where you think they will help the most.

There are two ways to get more gear or levels for Insane.

• Is farm Hard Summit on campaign.
• Is a little harder but can be more fun. Do your best to get to beat Ancient Mines on Insane Campaign then farm it on survival. You will get more better gear and more EXP doing this but it isn’t an option for everyone.

4. You are ready for Insane

This is where the game gets a bit harder! Go at your own speed, this is not easy to get through. If you get stuck on a level maybe you need to farm up some gear or levels. Stop at Ancient Mines and farm it a bit on survival, after completing wave 14 you get rock bet! The rock pet slows your movement (can be annoying) but it gives you a lot of stats! Another good stopping point is Promenade, the build to farm this map is pretty simple and can be done with low stats. You might need to farm it a bit before you can finish Insane campaign.

5. Now to hit 70!

After finishing Insane campaign you might be pretty close depending oh much survival you did. You really have three option for getting to 70 once you finish the campaign.

• Farm summit on Insane.
• Farm Ancient Mines Survival ( You might be geared enough to get a giraffe on wave 25).
• Farm Promenade Survival.

Level 70-83

Good job you got to 70! Now this is where the game takes it up a notch and you see some new enemies. Time to have some fun with Nightmare and really test what you have learned so far.

Like I said Nightmare introduces new enemies to the game and these enemies are nothing to laugh at.

Spider:

• They spawn from above all over the map.
• They have two attacks
• Jump attack ( jump at player from a distance and melee attack)
• Web attack (shoots a web at player or tower, slowing attack and movement)
• They don’t do damage to the core and they have low health!

Dealing with spiders:

• Darkness trap ( makes it so they cant target)
• Explosive trap at the core ( if you don’t have defenses near the core and you aren’t standing near it the spider will afk at the core)
• When placing walls have your trap trigger range go behind it a little ( spiders attacking from behind will trigger trap that way)
• DSTs ( deadly strike towers, place at least two and make the ranges overlap the towers so they can shoot spiders off each other)

Sharken:

• They have a charge attack ( they start charging at a distance then sprint towards your defenses pushing them out of the way!)
• Medium sized health pool.

Dealing with sharken:

• Gas traps ( stuns just about everything besides ogres)
• Gas trap again…
• Other traps and auras, the sharken can’t push traps and auras with its charge.

Djinn:

• They have two channeled attacks
• Yellow beam ( buffs minions, increases health and damage)
• Red beam ( destroys your defenses at the end of channel)
• Shoots a slime ball that will knock you back and do high damage
• Flies a little off the ground so they are easy to target
• They can destroy auras and traps!

Dealing with djinn:

• Gas traps close to spawn door.
• Auras at the door will keep them close to the ground and inside trap range
• DST ( deadly strike tower, they prioritize nightmare enemies first!)

Goblin Copter:

• Flies in from air spawns
• Drops an ogre when it reaches its destination
• Shoots rockets at player and defenses (will 1 shot most players)
• Ogre that is dropped can’t damage crystal ( can damage defenses)

Dealing with goblin copter:

• DSTs are your best friend ( deadly strike towers )
• Attacking them yourself
• Killing them before they drop the ogre will either kill the ogre (if dropped off the map) or the ogre will have under half health.

Now that you know about the new enemies and how to deal with them lets get into the campaign! Don’t worry you don’t have to deal with all these new enemies on the first map!

Deeper Wells

An ogre is going to spawn on the first wave. You have two ways of dealing with this, you can kill it yourself with a hero that has a weapon upgraded or set up a DST behind the crystal. I personally put an explosive trap in front of the crystal to kill the spiders and DPS the ogre. Just remember spiders drop from above so they can attack your defenses from behind!

Ancient Mines

Much easier than Deeper Wells in my opinion! That being said this is where you get your first look at sharkens. Throw some gas and explosive traps down, monk auras, squire walls, and some apprentice towers and you are good.

Now you have a choice you can keep going through the campaign or you can stop here and farm Ancient Mines on survival till 80/83. I personally do did a little of both, I farmed Ancient Mines a bit to get some good rock pets to help my builders then I continued with the campaign. Once again Promenade is a good play to stop and gear up and get some EXP. I hope you like Promenade because that is where you are going to be farming for a while. Luckily it gets pretty AFK after a while.

Now finish Nightmare and get 83 so you can start Massacre.

Level 83-90

This is where things get a little tricky! Once you reach level 83 you can start Massacre campaign but you might not want to. Hear me out, Massacre is a huge step up from Nightmare. I would suggest waiting till 90 to go past the first act of massacre, but i know most of you are going to ignore me and try it anyway so i’m just going to tell you how to get to 90.

You are going to want to do a few things before starting Massacre, to give you a better chance at success.

1. Make a DPS hero

you really have two options with this Huntress or Monk. You can also make a tank Squire but I will go over that after.

Huntress

• Mythic/transcended gear
• Full Militia set ( always rolls with attack, focuses hero stats
• Mini gun at 0.13 or paintball gun at 0.1 speed
• Propeller Cat ( Alchemical Labs wave 15, 90% or higher)

Monk

• Mythic/transcended gear
• Full set ( anything get gives you a lot of Vitality and Boost)
• Any weapon that can be upgraded to shoot x4 and does electric damage and the faster the better. Upgrade the electric damage! ( mauler or dragon’s gang are your best bet)
• Genie (The Ramparts wave 15, anyone will do)

Squire

• Mythic/transcended gear
• Full Miner ( builder set )
• Any sword and shield
• Dragon pet ( The Summit wave 15, 80 upgrades or better, x3 damage, .4 attack speed)
• all you do is right click and block while your pet kills everything.

Apprentice

• Doesn’t attack fast enough

2. Get pets!

Not only are you going to need the propeller cat, genie, and dragon pet you are going to need a few giraffe on a treadmill pets for your builders. If you are farming Promenade you should be getting these every run so it shouldn’t be hard to get a good one.

3. Farm that gear

When you are farming 83-90 you are really doing it for the gear. Yes the hero points from the levels help but really you want to be able to use max gear. To farm gear and EXP I ran Promenade wave 20-25, some people do 23-25 doesn’t really matter which. This should get you full transcended gear by the time you hit level 90.

3.1 Farm that gear in Massacre

Okay so I said don’t do massacre but you might be able to do a few levels before getting stuck. Lots of people get to Alchemical Laboratory and then farm that boss to try and get a good Triple Threat (the best weapon for Huntress as off right now). Massacre does introduce a new enemy that you might want to be aware of first!

Siren:

• Large health pool.
• Can’t be attacked by defenses.
• Has a random elemental resistance including physical.
• Gives this to minions around it.
• Shoots a ball of light that hits very hard.
• You need to attack it to kill it.
• Will leave after a little if it isn’t attacked.
• Drops good loot!

Dealing with sirens:

• Kill poison resist sirens as fast as you can ( sharkens will not be stunned by gas trap if they have poison resistance)
• Attack once they spawn or not at all
• Have more than one person ( one can tank it on a squire the other can do the damage)
• Have lots of CC (gas trap, auras)

Massacre

It is much easier to finish massacre with a friend, some of the maps are large and it is hard to build everything you need with a short timer. Take your time! There is no rush to finish the campaign on massacre and you could just make yourself made. Only 1% of players have finished the campaign on massacre you will get it.

Level 90-100

This is end game people! You made it and now all that is left is for you to gear up and level up for massacre survival. At the time of writing this massacre survival isn’t out and the max level gear you can get is 286 and the max level weapon is 306.

Leveling Fast

Massacre Treasure Hunt challenge by far the best EXP but you need at least 3 people to do it fast and efficient. You also need to have beaten summit on massacre.

Some people say massacre Summit which is probably true but that boss fight is not easy and if you all die you basically get no EXP.

Gearing

Massacre hardcore Monsterfest it is easy, doesn’t take that much gear to get into and it should be easy to fill a group of 4.

Massacre hardcore Glitterhelm campaign. This is arguably better for farming gear than monsterfest because of the sirens. That being said it is harder to do and is more involved than just farming monsterfest.