The TESLA Strat (Get Giraffe - Pure Strat)

Hello everyone, i wanted to get a giraffe so i tried a easy strategy for Alch Lab.

It was on hard (much less hp mobs) in pure strategy mode (no elemental), you dont get any superloot but you do get a good giraffe (i got one with +25 to all stats and 77 ups).

Info:
I did this on HARD difficulty (No super-loot, but you get a good giraffe)
Pure Strategy Mode (so you dont get elemental monsters)

What you need:
Tower Apprentice with good gear (mine has 400 tower atk, but im sure you can do it with less).
Aura Monk with good aura range
App Guardian (if you have a friend or a gamepad, i suggest you that both characters use a guardian).


The Build/Setup
http://html5.cubicleninja.com/dd/index.htm?layout=1290
http://steamcommunity.com/id/DrDisaster/screenshot/594703156312902155
Snare aura x2
Lightning Tower x11
2 Left DU for random barricade (you can probably build these a bit far of the towers, but in still in range. to lure ninjas while the towers kill them, the ninjas WILL target them, they hate those things)

there you can see
3 towers on the "back" (with two barricades)
2 towers ,one at each "side" of the crystal
6 towers on the "front" part (you probably can move one of these to the back part)
2 Snare aura (one at front and one at the back) each covering the two entry points of each side

Some Notes
-With only 1 app guardian, some warriors managed to hit the towers at the back at later waves (20+), i had a squire guardian for those, but later got a friend for an extra App guardian on the back.
-The damage of Lightning towers was 3k+ per tick with app guardian (1k something without).
-I started at wave 7 and it took around 7 hours to finish
-At 5k mobs per wave, it takes around 15 min to finish (last wave had 7k mobs)

Let me know if you have any question

Well atleast its a simple build! :D

Not only that, but is also really fun to watch the entire map get shocked by the towers at the same time

This would be good w/ a Huntress Guardian I imagine, should lead to faster recharge time. A duo w/ Huntress & Apprentice Guardians sounds ideal.

I dont think I can sit for that long though, id rather just do regular survival so I get some good loot on the way.

For us that doesnt have great gear, would this be possible without an app guardian/huntress guardian? My gear isnt good enough to get a giraffe on insane mode.

What monk stats are needed for the auras to last the full waves later on?

For us that doesnt have great gear, would this be possible without an app guardian/huntress guardian? My gear isnt good enough to get a giraffe on insane mode.

My apprentice have 129 tower health, 187 tower atk, 89 AoE and 100 tower speed. So far they are doing great to level 19.
My brother have a monk with 106 tower health, 121tower dmg 101 radius 76 atk speed.

Just be sure the slow field at the front shouldn't cover the entire field but only the 2 ways down to the core. Otherwise you will burn the aura at lvl 13 before the map is done.

Also put 2 shields at front where you have most crystals. Those zipper have a chance of getting past.

Then its just to sit back for 2 hours or more, do remember to repair the auras.

Quick question , i actually did a similar build last night myself with a random ' I wonder if .. ' moment , i did notice the lack of elemental immune mobs when i tried, however my question is , is it PS mode that lifts the immunity or is it Hard difficulty that does? As in, if you wanted, could you have insane PS mode?

Quick question , i actually did a similar build last night myself with a random ' I wonder if .. ' moment , i did notice the lack of elemental immune mobs when i tried, however my question is , is it PS mode that lifts the immunity or is it Hard difficulty that does? As in, if you wanted, could you have insane PS mode?

With PS there are no elemental immunity. See http://dungeondefenders.wikia.com/wiki/Pure_Strategy

Quick question , i actually did a similar build last night myself with a random ' I wonder if .. ' moment , i did notice the lack of elemental immune mobs when i tried, however my question is , is it PS mode that lifts the immunity or is it Hard difficulty that does? As in, if you wanted, could you have insane PS mode?

No elemental immunites in PS mode at all.

The build doesn't work so great for the stats I have at wave 20 Warriors just trash the shields and monster keep slipping past the towers and don't have any guardian so that might be the problem.

Ok at wave 20 it just rape you with the stats I had.

With PS there are no elemental immunity. See http://dungeondefenders.wikia.com/wiki/Pure_Strategy

Thanks ^^ Should have opened my eyes before my... you get the idea, thanks though anyway :)

As for you zuka ,i have a theory, but need some time to get to level 20 ish lol , basically the flaw i can see with this build is what you said, the ninja's can and will just hop over my idea is dropping one LT and use the 2 extra spares for a DST tower and place it Front/mid/side ledge pointing towards the crystal , i imagine with its range it'll shoot the back / one side maybe, but it will ( i think) , priority close range will use that layout posted above and show what i mean in a moment.

http://html5.cubicleninja.com/dd/index.htm?layout=1460

Point the DST over to top left corner ( regards to the map picture) so it doesnt target the endless streams etc, i imagine you just want it close enough to be in range of the lightning towers should it get pounced, with your last point , place a wall in front or near the DST ... maybe.. or put a wall somewhere.. AI loves beating them to death lol ..

Your auras stand for the entire wave or you upgrade / destroy / rebuild / upgrade at each wave?

With that many lightning rods they don't take much abuse, only until the intial charge of the rods is it busy in there, so they should last.

In regards to the build i altered slightly , and now running with 1 DST on each of the 'side'steps facing to the crystal , so they also help with kobolds etc but not enough so they shoot constantly , will see how it ends up. Btw, pets on this place are level 15 and 25 ?

The auras are there to slow kobolds mostly, so the towers have time to kill them while they lit their bombs.
The best thing is to have at least 1 app guardian (more if you dont have good gear), you can get one easily on summit medium or hard (the ideal thing would be one app guardian buffing the front and another on the back).

The aura health doesnt need to be that high either (i have around 150 health but they barely lose any) after each wave), just build them covering the stairs where the towers have range (or else you will be slowing mobs and make them cluster, and that isnt good.

The idea for this build was that 1 mob get in range and because of that 1 mob, all the others gets zapped (before they reach the snare aura).

I dont think DST will work, at later waves you get a lot of Elf Warriors, and DST is slow.
And i think 2 app guardian are better than hunt, more damage is better than longer shock time-faster recharge (so elfs die faster and doesnt reach your defense).

Trying this on Insane Pure Strategy. I'm on Wave 15, and the drops are absolute garbage. I just found my first weapon with over 25 upgrades. Anyone that's thinking about doing this for item drops, just do regular Survival.

Also, I noticed my crystal had taken damage. I assume the Insane Kobolds were able to get in just close enough to chip away at the crystal with their explosions.

Yeah, dont do this for loot, its all garbage.
Thats why i did it on hard, mobs with much less hp and still got a pretty good giraffe (77 upgrades).

Do you have any idea if Imps work on pure strat?

This would be good w/ a Huntress Guardian I imagine, should lead to faster recharge time. A duo w/ Huntress & Apprentice Guardians sounds ideal.

I dont think I can sit for that long though, id rather just do regular survival so I get some good loot on the way.

Huntress Guardians INCREASE attack duration for lightning towers, they don't lower the recharge time iirc.

Yeah this isn't possible without guardians. I have a 200/300/100/200 app and a 300/250/150/100 monk and I got to wave 23 without a guardian. Will be trying this again once I get my guardian to 40/50.

managed level 14 and ran out of time for playing today. Had a ^22 guardian that got me over 4k on the front three lightning towers.

Just got my first giraffe thanks to this.

Its almost necessary to have two good apprentice guardians covering the front and back. Otherwise, this is pretty much afkable. Got myself rank 6 and did it in like 3 hours.

Ran this strat on Insane, managed to get to Wave 23 before getting pwned badly ): App had 500+ tower attack. Had a mate afk in game, so there were a total of 2 guardians. (1 huntress, 1 app - Sadly, both were low levels 20 odd).

I must say other than getting other higher upgrades guardians, I see no way of trying to get past Wave 23 on Insane. >< Will be trying again to see if I can get past this brick wall! :D

Anyhow, Strategy is simple and awesome to use. Props to the guy who thought of this. People with decent/average gear should be able to clear it on Medium easily and Hard mode (with average guardians). Remember to repair auras and you should be fine! :)


Note: As with the post above mine, my game play time for a run would be ~3 hours.


Edit: Brought a level 14 toon in (cause he's able to equip a guardian). Mate practically AFK'ed ingame. Got him to level 64 after 2 Insane Runs to Wave 15, and 1 Insane Run to Wave 23. Pretty decent I guess.

I'm going to try Insane tonight. I did hard last night no problem with 3 characters all with apprentice guardians (all guardians were in the low 30s.) Planted one character on the west monk aura, one character on the east aura, and one character standing on the crystal.

My Auras had about 1600 life at 3 stars and I had no trouble with them failing mid-wave.

All the drops were terrible, but the benefit is you can run this 99% afk. Just alt tab to repair auras and start the next wave and alt tab back out.

On hard. Hmm as soon as I got to level 20 the dark elf warriors jumped over the defenses. TBH I restated my characters it may do better I now have 3k on the back towers and 8-9k on the front ones with my guardian.

Just tried this on hard. Got to wave 22 or 23 and my defenses couldn't hold up any longer. Monk and App have basically 115/220/115/115 type of stats (I don't have the exact stats offhand). Had an App guardian that could buff 3 towers. But yeah...couldn't get past level 23. There's 3.5 hours wasted. :(