[NEW] Alch lab survival insane [GUIDE]

The map: Alch labs

Benefits:

-only 2/4 hotspots
-spawning is in the same order all the time
-just one crystal
-no ogres,wyverns, warrior(ninja) starting wave 15
-fast runs
-7k monster(cap/solo)
-nice manafarm

disadvantages:

-no good chest loot
-no Crystal Tracker like weapon (bad hunterweapon in overall)



The build



-Yellow dots on the towers are fireball, blue ones are magic missle
-1FB 2MM south west and northwest facing spawns (ty mrbutton u got some influences^^)
-the east auras should be placed to hit both sides pretty much the same and also the turning point at the end of the stairs where the monster run around should be in the aura
-the walls can be exchanged for something else as they are just some nice damageblocker(needs to be rebuild often)
-its a speedrunning build. no waves getting stuck for longer times.


The playstyle

-starting wave 15 each round begins with a ninja rush, try to avoid them get them in a long path, get them split, best to start with north spawn than go to the east
-after the first rush the east spawns a lot of monster
-after 2000monster the south increases the west and east south
-at 3000 the south east is dried and north eaast starts, south west still on spawning
-at 4000/4500 north west start south west dries up
-1k monster before finish north east dries up aswell
-do loot every armorpart u can get in early waves they are worth more than weapons.
-weapon do start to get interesting on wave 16+, armor are most likely **** but still worth mana^^
-new loot is categorized and the last of each category (i.e. the last boots are the newest)


IMPORTANT NOTES FOR ALL

- DONT go near ur crystal, that lets invisible arrows/fireballs fly on it
- DONT let ninja die near the crystal, that are the skelly spawning behind ur defenses
- Fairy over animus starting wave 20
- this build is NOT for afking but active play
- best suited for 2 player

could i get your tower specs on apprentice, aura spec on monk, and DPS spec on huntress before i attempt this?

also what are the three towers in the back

ahhh squire weapons here are great, but finding one with a nice attack speed is a pain. bonebows and simple shooters are so common here.

-new loot is categorized and the last of each category (i.e. the last loots are the newest)
FIXED

-1FB 2MM south west and northwest facing spawns, and no i ment boots. as when u had 10 boots in ur item box, and pick up 5 the 5 will be the last items, and not mixed in with the rest. so u dont have to double check ur items, its just for casual player who wanna try surv alch lab.

my towerspecs are almost the best legits of all players in the moment and i have either 220k dps or 190k with 60k pierceshots. but it works with prepatch stuff aswell as my last build did meaning only the important stat on 200 and the rest around 100

i'm rocking about 80k dps with a 30k piercing shot
1865/10 blasticus look alike

Yesterday when myself and a few others did Alchemy on Insane, the max amount of mobs was a little over 8000, it was like around 8600 or there abouts, once the limit gets hit thats all the mobs there are, took a little over 4 hours to finish survival.

kind of strange 7k is the max for solo play and 8k is the max with 4 people

and sorry, but there was some EXTREMELY Excellent loot, stats in the mid 20s early 30s and upgrades up to 56.

Loot is best when theres a full team, solo wont result in any of the high up stuff like we were running into.

as i wrote the "cap" was solo, and the monster amount still raise but just by a mere hundred, for 56^ armors?! u would need a wave no one else reached before. for 56^ weapon u need a wave of at least 23. considering the amount of monsters u had u were at wave 20, and i mean exactly 20

we didnt get armors in the 50s when we were doing it, in the high 30s early 40s only, the 50s were for weapons

bad hunterweapon in overall

Sick bone bows from there. :)

Nice guide, though. I'd suggest uploading a screenshot of unupgraded towers & auras, it's much clearer to see what they represent without the 3 stars covering them. Personally I don't have that issue, but still. I'll try this setup myself and see if I can improve it

Thanks for the new guide, working like a charm so far!

Would like to note that I've seen warriors at wave 14 when in group play.

Wanna put this alternative out too:



This is also for active play and gives you alot of time in between being killed by warriors. If ur elec aura is not too big best put it in front of where the forge usually is on top of the stairs.

Make sure the enrage auras reach the 2nd floor in the north area. I had 93% chance to enrage and it worked pretty well with 4 people. We kept getting owned by warriors but none of the mobs went through the defense.

Reached wave 20 or 21 until a orc teleported beside our crystal.

nice tweaks and write-up gj

There's some differences from your set up (the one you posted, anyway) and the one he posted. They are similar, though.

Well the OPs new strat lasted me to 20 instead of 18 in the previous. At the start of 20, maybe 30 seconds in, crystal gets annihilated by an orc that somehow teleported there as none of my defenses fell. Kind of frustrating to lose this way when I dont have a clue how its even possible.

Asymmetrical defenses. I hate it.

The map does have good Huntress weapons. You can get a minigun and bonebow from Alchemy Labs, both of which are solid. The dragon launcher might be decent, but I haven't found a good enough one to play around with.

well i have to state that i am one of those with an uber VW xD, and i think bone that pierce just one monster isnt better than a VW

Here is the build I use, we got to wave 20 on insane without any signs of the build failing or having a weakness. Lost due to "self destruct crystal"

I don't know if it was a glitch like the invisible skeletons in the floor or something, or if we just got really unlucky with an archer in rage from behind one of the walls. So this screenshot shows the walls moved further back up the stairs when I used to have them near the bottom of the stairs so that more mobs would die before a proxy charge had to be used.







Here is all the reasoning that went into my design.

1.) I have walls covering all 4 chokes with a strength drain aura in the center that is large enough to cover both walls. This makes my last line defenses very strong and almost impossible to break since there are no ogres on this stage.

2.) I like traps & auras they stack together in a wonderfull synergy, the main difference between survival and other modes other than the hp/dmg of the mobs scaling is the sheer number of mobs and how large of a group they come in. Inferno Traps & Electric Auras offer the largest damage over a large area vs any towers. Add in a Ensnare Aura & Gas Trap and its pretty much death to anything.

3.) There is no towers to grab agro from ninjas or summoners, nor towers for ninjas to destroy. Apprentice towers I feel would be very vulnerable to the mass Ninja that starts after wave 15. Traps & Auras however are completely immune, only the walls can grab agro and they are protected by strength drain and have a proxy charge to greet any ninja that decides to attack them.

4.) Auras and Traps stack, literally, they are all right ontop of each other in the same spot. I run survival mode with the engineer pet that has an AOE repair ability. So I never have to worry about being able to repair in battle I can just keep fighting and run near my defenses and it pretty much takes care of itself. Maybe a small repair on a wall after mass ninjas kill you and get a few cheap hits in while your dead. Even without a repair pet traps & auras are way easier to repair than towers and you only have to worry about decay not damage from enemies.

Must say that strategy has interested me Vicious. Time to level up a trap huntress and try it out :)

100% agree with Vicious. This is the same strat that I was playing with. Only need to maintain the auras.

Solid build

Realdragon, how are you surviving on wave 20+?

For me I just get absolutely swarmed by assassins and I cant do anything, assassins will cut up my towers in no time without a strength drain. If I try to repair then its just MORE assassins jumping on my head!

How are you winning without strength drain?!

20+ is hard, even though i lost just cause of bugs on it. u need a good dps xD

I use a build similar to the one of Vicious and got the same problem, with Wave 20 the ninjas gang up on me so hard, that i lost one of the east auras which get drained so fast with the mass amount of mobs in there. After the Aura down everything went south really fast.

Also anyone can explain how you can solo survive wave 20+ with tower outside of drain str auras? Those ninjas literally one-shot everything by then.

the walls are inside of the str drain, the range shown isnt the real one

i never use spiked barricades, i use magic barriers instead, since they don't cause any damage thus warriors will just run into it and keep running (not moving or attacking them or anything) while they try to get to the fireball towers behind. Its an interesting flaw in the AI to say the least. The same works for ogres on harder maps as well.

i never use spiked barricades, i use magic barriers instead, since they don't cause any damage thus warriors will just run into it and keep running (not moving or attacking them or anything) while they try to get to the fireball towers behind. Its an interesting flaw in the AI to say the least. The same works for ogres on harder maps as well.

Won't be using them for much longer now you've let it slip. Clearly it's way too useful.