I'm mana broke. Or, I need to make the most mana per map

So I have 1 lvl 74 hero right now. It is an apprentice with a Myth set. As far as lvl 74 heroes go, he's fairly weak. I don't know how people have the stacked heroes (besides obvious hacked it buyers) because I spent over 125 million on my armor and staff and he seems so weak.

I do know I can get him fairly strong by fully upping his current armor but I can never make any real mana. So far the best mana earnings I has made is on NM Mistymire HC. I want to say it was survival but it won't let me host MM NM Survival, just regular with HC.

Is there a better way to earn mana? Legitimately? I mean as a team we made 6mil for
Just wave 2.

Also part 2: any highly leveled 74's want to let in on their games. I get kicked all the time and while I k ow its because my stats are meh, I don't usually die, my resistsnces are high and I can keep the spiders at bay. I don't loot and if I do I ask if it's cool, and only grab items that are highlighted green which is rare since my suit is upped a decent amount.

So in conclusion, somebody help me lol. I usually play between 6pm - 10pm on Northeast US servers. My Steam is Officer Farva | Car Ramrod.

Ps- sorry for paragraphing and spelling issues, posting from my phone.

You can make 90 million mana per mystimire hc nm campaign solo to wave 12 run.

Host an afk shop and sell stuff. Farm pets on Endless Spires HC NM, you buy them for 10 or 75mil mana and sell em for 200. Once you get real good gear, mana is a non-issue. 125mil is nothing, just keep at it and at some point you'll get there too.

What you really need is help clearing campaign on NM (not hc) so you can unlock survival. Once survival is unlocked, you're off to the races.

I started off farming 1-10 to no end gearing about every class combination. Even at Wave 10 on rare occasion you'll get a decent drop to sell in an afk shop. Doing all of this many, many times you'll have a lot of items to sell and therefore will have a lot of mana to upgrade your gear. After you break through the ice on Wave 10, you're not far away from getting to Wave 20. Currently I can solo to around 21/22 if I'm lucky... working to get higher but experiencing spider issues.

For all of this, I have geared level 74 (and I assume everyone else does too):

Aura Monk
Wall Apprentice
Trap Huntress
DPS Huntress
Tower Squire

This all comes easy when you're running solo, because you get all of the loot. Match gear sets, sell the rest, level everything up. It used to be much harder, but now I find it very easy to sell gear in my shop to level my existing gear. Whenever I open my shop it's not uncommon to hit the mana cap (2 billion mana) in only a couple of hours. I'm not sure how people get all of the mana to buy my stuff, but that's none of my business (I always got my own gear). It takes a while to get to this point, but it's the path I took.

I haven't been playing forever either. I've only been playing a little under 2 months. It's very easy once you get a map that works for you, and I'm constantly trying to tweak mine.

selling entire Mythical Sets you find is pretty popular, i've sold pretty good myth sets and got 500 mil instantly (but you need to farm hc misty survival though)

Manalabs NM SURV.

Not sure how to quote but thanks for the suggestions!

My biggest problem I guess is I can't solo NM yet. I can do the first 3 solo, but once I get to alchemy lab I can't hold. I guess I'll have to keep hosting and hope for a lucky set of 74's to join.

My build plans were:
Tower Apprentice
Aura Monk
Trap Huntress
DPS Barbarian
DPS Huntress

Is a tower squire considerably better than a tower apprentice? Could you set a squire just for blockers Tower HP/damage and then have a tower Apprentice that is tower damage/range/speed?

Sorry for noob questions. Been at this game for 2 weeks and still
Figuring stuff out.


Edit: what is Manalabs?

For you to make mana by yourself, you need a tower spec char. Either App or Squire. With the current version of the game, it's Squire > App. But either one will work. I found for me when I first hit 74 is to do NM Endless Spire. The set up is easy and if done properly, you can begin to clear the whole map by yourself. Also getting a genie and hunteress/App Guardin would help as well. If you want, PM me and i'll run you threw my 'lowbie set up' and help you get the right pets.

My biggest problem I guess is I can't solo NM yet. I can do the first 3 solo, but once I get to alchemy lab I can't hold. I guess I'll have to keep hosting and hope for a lucky set of 74's to join.

That's actually impressive if you got Deeper Well beat, it's one of the harder maps due to low mana on the map.

I would go find a good "NM - Endless Spires" build and start running that over and over till you can beat it. Then turn on HC and repeat. You will see armor up to ^100 and should be able to get your app into some decent stats. Probably get Tower HP and Tower Attack up to 600-900 from there.

Then you should switch over to NM survival on a map of your choosing. Survival gives some pretty good money if you can get far enough into it too. See how far you can push in, and if possible turn on HC mode for better loot drops. Post wave 14 you should start seeing upgrades (better than spires gear).

From there you are going to want to move over to Misty Campaign, get a build that can solo to the boss (good test to see if your gears ready). If you can make it then put together a couple people and kill the spider queen on nightmare. That unlocks survival and from there its just a matter of endlessly running NM SV HC Mistymire (Nightmare, Survival, Hardcore).

My build plans were:
Tower Apprentice
Aura Monk
Trap Huntress
DPS Barbarian
DPS Huntress

It's going to get REALLY expensive to try and gear that many characters with mythical all at once, better off to get one really good one and use him to get high end gear from Mistymire Survival and give to your alts to skip leveling a ton of gear you just replace. Once you get into the 100^+ gear you will be spending hundreds of millions to upgrade their gear. Also the game is still pinballing around and classes keep changing their "use" as nerfs and buffs fly around. Best to just focus on one or two at a time.

Is a tower squire considerably better than a tower apprentice? Could you set a squire just for blockers Tower HP/damage and then have a tower Apprentice that is tower damage/range/speed?

Apprentice held the crown for a while. Now Squires are top dog, their tower dps is unmatched by an app thanks to the holy wtf nerf to app's last month.
Squire, squire, squire is all you need.... currently... till they mess with it again.

Edit: what is Manalabs?

He means "Alchemy Labs". The level you were stuck on. NM SV HC - Alchemy Labs is one of the easier places (only one crystal) and post wave 10 you start making 20-30 million a wave.

P.S. To quote click there is a button "Reply with quote" at the bottom of the poster's message you are trying to quote.

Edit: Chaos brought up a REALLY good point I forgot. You will want to get a Genie Pet (gives you mana when you attack mobs). You will also want a Hunter Guardian or Apprentice Guardian (personally I prefer Hunter). You should be able to get one to roll in the shop by completing NM HC Campaign levels. It will cost you 75million (or 10 bucks if you get lucky) but they are a MUST in endgame. Or you could try to get them from survival but I found it easier to just run spires a bunch and keep checking back everytime you beat it. You get about 30million a run and it takes 10-15 minutes. Two birds one stone, you get mana, and a chance to get the pets you need. (I found beating Ramparts has better pet rolls in tavern but could be just luck)

I made 150 million last Mistymire HC campaign run to wave 12. Pick up every bit of loot you can. Build and repair as quickly as possible and sell all the junk between waves 9 and 10. Lock anything that is green and click "sell all". You should have space to carry on looting.

Ok, awesome advice here. I do really appreciate it and it'll help a lot.

My plan was to atleast max out this apprentice with the current armor set, staff and pet. He is equipped with a 90 level unicorn pet that is actually pretty strong. Doesn't look hacked though (no ridiculous stats atleast). I'm mid to high 500's in tower stats but my attack speed stat is at 268 so I need to work on that.

So to do survival I need to beat the boss from the earlier campaign? IE beating demon lord will let me do survival up to throne room, then. Goblin mech will allow up to the Summit? And as said beating the spider queen will let you run Mistymire Nm survival.

These suggestions are awesome though. I'll need to do an alchemy lab survival or 2 tonight. I guess I'll swap my unicorn out for my 48 level apprentice guardian.



The suggestions

what do you play on trendy or open.... open i can immeadiately help trendy ill be a little delayed

I play trendy right now. I do have some characters in open but I dont think I got to lvl 74 before I found out what the trendy online was.

For you to make mana by yourself, you need a tower spec char. Either App or Squire. With the current version of the game, it's Squire > App. But either one will work. I found for me when I first hit 74 is to do NM Endless Spire. The set up is easy and if done properly, you can begin to clear the whole map by yourself. Also getting a genie and hunteress/App Guardin would help as well. If you want, PM me and i'll run you threw my 'lowbie set up' and help you get the right pets.

That is VERY good advice. That is the setup I am currently using... an app with a genie for the first rounds of ES NM and then switching to an app guardian for the final round.

ok no worries.. itll take me some times to get a build to help ya on trendy.. i dont play it much cause most of my friends dont play it and.... people are report happy on trendy...

This is my current ES NM HC setup... it is likely different than most of the other builds out there since it doesn't use DST towers.

http://html5.cubicleninja.com/dd/index.htm?layout=20964

Here.. This build is for a solo apprentice on Endless Spires.

Just follow the instructions.

http://html5.cubicleninja.com/cubicleninja/html5/dd/index.htm?layout=21533

This is my current ES NM HC setup... it is likely different than most of the other builds out there since it doesn't use DST towers.

http://html5.cubicleninja.com/dd/index.htm?layout=20964

The problem with this is, more towers=more towers to upgrade and with the timer on the campaign mode this adds to the difficulty of the map.

Especially for someone with lower tower stats who needs to upgrade the towers to be able to make it into the later waves.

hey guys so I have like 300/500/x/250 ish tower stats, with a 74 countess and app that are both using some 40 damage upgrade out of 100 myth weapons from the assault pack on insane difficulty. I can solo NM ES or NM ramparts with a reasonable clear rate but it seems that I can never find any good gear.

am I supposed to be upgrading my armor all the way to 80/80 or 100/100 to be able to do some of the harder maps? or should I just be grinding more NM ES? how are people getting 800-1000 tower stats with just this map?

Are you doing Hardcore mode too?

And to Vallos, I upgrade during the battle phase too... the important towers are the two sets that take down the ogres and the barriers that protect them, and since you only need the ones near the top to be stellar for wave 6, you can stagger your upgrading... so you end up upgrading the ones protecting the eastern staircase through the end of wave 6 and through the beginning of wave 7.

It was a setup close to this that helped me beat the level for the first time (after the recent nerf but before the health buff) and as I've increased in strength, it has become more efficient.

Basically, we have two different approaches to the same map.

So to do survival I need to beat the boss from the earlier campaign? IE beating demon lord will let me do survival up to throne room, then. Goblin mech will allow up to the Summit? And as said beating the spider queen will let you run Mistymire Nm survival.

Beating a level on x difficulty will unlock survival on that difficulty. IE: Betting a level on insane will unlock insane survival, beating it on nightmare will unlock nightmare survival. So if you want to do Alchemy Labs survival you will have to beat the level on nightmare first (which does mean killing the boss).

Each level is independent so killing the boss won't unlock a bunch of levels. You have to beat every level on nightmare if you want to play survival on them all.

http://html5.cubicleninja.com/dd/index.htm?layout=21673
This is the build I have been using of late. Need a decent mage (~600 tower attack) to have enough tower dps to kill the ogres and will most likely have to be guardian buffed. Have to feel it out and see when the ogres become a problem, and switch to guardian for that wave.

am I supposed to be upgrading my armor all the way to 80/80 or 100/100 to be able to do some of the harder maps? or should I just be grinding more NM ES? how are people getting 800-1000 tower stats with just this map?

Hardcore Mode. Last waves will drop some pretty decent stuff, specially last wave of chests.
Beyond that you have to stack gear when you level it to get 800-1000 stats. If tower Attack is what your going for, first 20-30 points go into getting resistances to 30% dump everything else into tower attack.

Beyond that you have to start doing Survival HC to get upgrades.

Also for armor stats, be careful. Know the caps. I just realized that I have the equivalent of 122% generic resists in upgrades but The cap is at 90% and that is wasted mana right there. I could have had a bit more levels in other resists or tower stats.

Last night I got in with someone who knew what they were doing and had a tower knight. It was insane, made nightmare seem easy. Got alchemy lab beat on NM HC so I can start mana mining that and upping my gear until I can start doing some solo runs on the higher levels.

EDIT: is there a place/thread with all the caps for each stat? It'd be useful for leveling up and not making that mistake again.

Also for armor stats, be careful. Know the caps. I just realized that I have the equivalent of 122% generic resists in upgrades but The cap is at 90% and that is wasted mana right there. I could have had a bit more levels in other resists or tower stats.

I'm pretty sure that you want to max the resists - cos in nightmare the resist are lower than in insane for example.

*edits* Yeah I just went in game to check - I have 30 - 32% on each piece of armour (so your 122%) but in nightmare it's only 66 - 67% total - more you have on everything, the higher you can get in nightmare =)

Also for armor stats, be careful. Know the caps. I just realized that I have the equivalent of 122% generic resists in upgrades but The cap is at 90% and that is wasted mana right there. I could have had a bit more levels in other resists or tower stats.

122% is only 67.5 (rounded to 68%) on any Nightmare map so those points were not only not wasted but in actuality you need to push it up further still.

80% is the minimum you should ultimately want to shoot for which works out to roughly 144 total points in a resistance stat.