How To Change Floor Trap

⭐ Opening & Introduction

This guide took me a while to make and finish, so it's only fair to ask for these things, right? Maybe drop an award if you're feeling particularly generous too?

BEFORE WE START: A BRIEF WORD OF WARNING HERE!!!
This guide contains some light spoilers for the game, I will talk about bosses that show up in some maps and in a game like this some people would consider it a spoiler.
I won't be talking about the story or what happens later in detail, either.

I figured it's better to be safe than sorry to let you people know this in advance.

How up to date is this guide?

It was last updated with info on the release of the Steam version at July 23rd, 2021 which included the Drastic Steps DLC and Scramble Mode.

Contains updated info on most balance changes and bug fixes made in the August 11th, 2021 patch .

Updated Hidden Dock in walkthrough section since its early waves have been made more difficult for some reason in the September 16th, 2021 patch .

Another small update to the Hidden Dock map (again) that was reversed to its original state in the October 7th, 2021 patch .

Now contains all info on the new trap, weapon and trinket and new videos for the walkthrough at the end of the guide for Cold as Eyes DLC which was introduced on November 11th, 2021 patch.

It took almost full 9 years, but we're back to Orc killin' business.
____________________________________________

What is this guide about?

As I mentioned in the preface, this is a guide aimed at both newcomers looking to understand what a certain trap or weapon does, or maybe more seasoned players looking for a second opinion.

Simply put this guide is the results of my experiences with the game, my experiments with traps and weapons fighting every type of enemy in many situations. Everything here is liable to change with time and as I learn more about the game, or if any patches changes the balance of the game.

What is this guide NOT about?

It is NOT about Endless.
I may cover some very basic aspects of this game mode, but you will not find any deep or complex strategy on it here since, being very honest: Endless bores me to tears.

This is NOT about combo making nor high scoring.
Like the above I may give some offhanded tips about it, but I won't be covering this subject extensively since I was never interested in high scoring at all.

Are you going to teach me how to 'win at the game'?

No. That'd be pretentious of me. I'm just here to maybe give you pointers and let you try and see what could work best for you.

I don't want to sound like a tacky motivational booklet, but you have to find out what works best for yourself, because some trap and weapon combinations will work much better for you than it'd ever for me and vice-versa. It all depends on what type of playstyle you have.

"I need help with [insert map name here]!"

I'll leave a link with a playlist with every map completed on Rift Lord difficulty below.

Do keep in mind that this is just how I beat the maps, if you feel you can improve upon it or adapt it to your playstyle, please do it.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS7CYzATG6xA7lGNZVfCTxWmCFG31ERqC

Are there any plans to update this guide further?

Major updates will depend if any new content comes out, like a new DLC, new traps, or balancing patches making traps/weapons/trinkets stronger or weaker (aka buffs and nerfs).

Small updates however are always happening and depends if I find new information, or new tactics with weapons or traps. I'm also constantly fixing typos or weird wording and phrasing here and there.

I'm also prone to change my opinion especially about traps and weapons, sometimes I learn or am taught how to use them in ways I haven't noticed before and I will change descriptions at my own discretion. Especially if any balancing patches come out.

The Order has its fair share of legends. Are you ready to become the next one?

✍ Guide Credits

Me!

Responsible for:
Guide creation, writing, management, researching, spell-checking, proofreading, image gatherering... The whole shebang.
P.S: Table formatting in Steam guides is about as fun as eating jalapeños jam and downing it with water.

A long time fan of the franchise and an avid Orc killer with a kill count above the million mark in Orcs Must Die! 2 and eager to increase it by another million in this game.

I'm not a "pro player" or anything like that. Just the average player who happens to like this game enough to write this guide. It bears repeating: everything here is my opinion and just that.

I started creating this guide based on my (very) limited experience with the game before it reached Steam, so I had to re-write a ton of stuff because a lot of things were either me misremembering stuff or just getting how things work plain wrong.

Other guides by me:

This is not my first guide like this, I've also written many other extensive guides, and among these guides there is one about Orcs Must Die! 2, and many other games of this very peculiar genre that is Tower Defense/Action.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=321647347 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=505739685 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482075212 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=621968802 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=729779266

____________________

Special Thanks to:

Robot Entertainment for not forgetting about this game even after going through some hard times.
Orcs Must Die! Wiki [orcsmustdie.fandom.com]. For providing some necessary numerical information.
Everyone else who contributed to this guide . Here and anywhere else.

📚 Table of Contents

Hints and Tips:
General hints, advice and pointers about several aspects or game modes, and some for co-op too.
Characters:
The six heroes of Orcs Must Die! 3 explained. Their special abilities and health and mana detailed.
Traps:
Want to know what something does before spending your skull on it? This is your section. It's divided in categories (Wall, Floor, Ceiling) alphabetically for your convenience.
War Machines:
The meaner, oversized, traps used in War Scenarios. Sorted just like Traps.
Weapons:
Your tools of trade, what you'll use to fight the Orc horde directly.
Trinkets:
Small equipment which are not mandatory nor necessary, but can give you an edge in battle.
Weapon Loadouts (Builds):
Just for fun. Suggestions of combination of weapons and trinkets I use. Might make people who goes with a single weapon raise an eyebrow.
Trap Ideas (Builds):
Again, just for fun. A few of the ideas for trap combinations I use here and there. Keep in mind it can always be slightly altered to suit the needs depending on the weapon loadout or the map.
Enemies:
Know what you'll fight here. While the game gives a small description for them I'll go in detail about their traits and weaknesses.
Rift Lord Walkthrough:
How I beat maps here and there. Not a strict guide, but it can help you if you're stuck.

🔰 Hints and Tips: Basics and General

Be prepared:
Before we move to the main course of the guide (traps, weapons and trinkets) I'll leave some Hints and Tips here (more about Rift Lord below, near the Enemy section if you're really interested).
The Hint and Tips sections are dedicated to people who are starting the game or have little experience. But not only for them.

Even if you feel you're a seasoned Orc killer, please, take a small glance over it. Who knows if this will at least light one or two few little things that you may have not noticed right away...

Aim for their heads!

This is one of the things that beginners may not notice right away is that almost every ranged weapon can deal Headshots-- which means almost all of them can deal far more damage in a short spam of time if you aim at the head of enemies.

Of course headshotting every single enemy is nigh impossible, but it's a very practical way to handle heavy threats like Ogres and Trolls.

The few ranged weapons that cannot deal Headshots are the Flame Bracers, the Ice Amulet and the Alchemist's Satchel.

The headshot icon. A sharp sound will also play whenever you score a successful headshot. Weapons with high fire rate can score several headshots in quick succession.

____________________________________________

Playing on Apprentice

If one or two maps is giving you trouble consider playing it on Apprentice difficulty.

Playing on Apprentice won't make you a worse player, on contrary, it will let you understand the map layout better and the slower enemies may let you understand better which spots are giving you the most trouble better.

____________________________________________

Skull Refunds!

Refunds are unlimited and should be used shamelessly as long as you don't have enough Skulls to upgrade everything. Especially if you want to try out new traps and new strategies.

However do keep in mind that you CANNOT refund skulls when you buy an item to unlock it. It's a permanent deal.

Use this with impunity.

____________________________________________

Melee vs Ranged: Which one is best?

The way I see it both have good and bad points.

I like using melee attacks to clean up squishier, lighter, foes quickly, but not heavy enemies due to their high health and the fact most of them are resistant to physical attacks and hit back really hard.

Ranged attacks on the other hand I use to deal with said heavier threats, especially those you do not want getting close to you, like say, Ogres, but they generally lack crowd control as most weapons of this type can hit only one enemy at a time without their (usually costly) secondary attack.

____________________________________________

Potions: A lesson in control

Potions are a commodity that drops from enemies not so often, so it's good to save them up for moments where something goes wrong, or a particularly tough wave.

Mana potions in special are valuable as you can spam your Mana consuming attacks, grab one and do it again which will most likely devastate the opposing mob.

But do keep in mind that potions disappear after a while too.

Leaving them to pick at the right moment sometimes can save your skin.

____________________________________________

Mana: Another lesson in control

Mana is used for most of the stronger attacks at your disposal and regenerates at moderate pace, but you can drain it almost instantly if you spam attacks that consume it.

Like mentioned above these some of these attacks are potent, but you can put yourself in a really bad situation if you don't measure it. Knowing when to blast your best attacks and having some self-control generally makes a lot of maps much easier to deal with.

It's also good to save Mana for particularly pesky enemies like Cyclops Mages, Armored Ogres and Gnolls.

🔰 Hints and Tips: Basics, the not-so-obvious

Early advantage

Fighting enemies on early waves as close to the spawn point as possible helps in many things, since your trap setup might be precarious attacking them as soon as you can will help you kill more stuff early and help you prevent from being overwhelmed.

Attacking as early as possible has the added benefit of helping, sometimes a lot, with Par Time for 5-Skulls.

____________________________________________

Rift Healing: a War Mage's best friend.

Standing close to the rift will give you a potent healing effect that might keep you alive and kicking. This is particularly useful to hold enemies pressuring you close to the rift.

It might be tempting to build everything around your rift because of that but keep in mind that if you're aiming for Perfect Victories you'll mostly likely miss Par Time since they are much more strict this time around and forces you to build closer to enemy spawn points.

When close enough to the rift you'll gain a powerful healing and a very small Mana regeneration boost. Never give up.

____________________________________________

Why enemies are attacking my Barricades?

Because of this. This is one of the examples that are best explained with images:

Example of a WRONG placement, with only half trap space. Big enemies like Ogres and Trolls WILL attack the Barricades. This also includes diagonal spaces.

I can't stress this enough: be EXTREMELY careful when building Barricades near pillars and diagonally as a misplaced Barricade will make enemies attack the nearest Barricade

Always use regular sized traps like Spike Trap, Tar or Brimstone to make sure you have the spacing correct.

____________________________________________

"Death... Does truly suck."

Unlike previous games, Orcs Must Die! 3 does not punish you heavily for dying-- which is good since your character are still as squishy and enemies are even more aggressive this time around.

Penalties you get for dying is being kicked back to the Rift and enemies moving faster until you respawn.

As fun as it sounds jumping into large crowds of enemies like a glorious berserker using your Bladestaff to hack and slash everything you might not want to get kicked back to the Rift if your trap course is far from it, as enemies can use the time you're not there to power through your Traps.

WARNING:
Death doesn't take out Rift Points... Unless you're playing on Scramble Mode with a certain debuff . If you are, be very careful about it.

____________________________________________

Crowd Control!

What is "crowd control"? Basically speaking it's a way to deal with groups of enemies you'll face in any way possible. It's often used for status conditions that either slows or outright stop enemies in their tracks leaving them wide open for your traps.

Crowd control plays an extremely important part in any advanced level of play in this game and learning how to use them will improve your skills at it drastically. Remember: it's not only always about the damage. Damage will be useless if you can't apply it to large crowds.

Enemies that move like Runners can easily get past traps before they get a chance to damage them, so it's important to have crowd control tools for them, with the most popular option being Tar, as well.

The Ice Amulet is an example of crowd control weapon.

____________________________________________

Gnolls and the Rift

Gnolls of any kind will NOT reduce Rift Points from you if they escape. This can be very helpful in a situation where you don't want to deal with a Hunter or a Grenadier, especially in Endless late game where enemies are very beefy.

Keep in mind that you'll need to work a little to lure Grenadiers into the rift as they have a decently ranged attack and will not follow you blindly like the Hunters.

WARNING:
Again, in Scramble there's the possibility of having a debuff that make all enemies, Gnolls included, deal 5 Rift Point damage instead of 1. Be very careful not to forget about this in Scramble!

Gnolls leaving the map. Notice that the Rift Point counter did not decrease.

🗪 Hints and Tips: Co-op

Orcs Must Die!... and having a friend surely helps.
___________________________________________________________

Different types of defense

Two people means twice as much firepower, but it also means nastier wave of enemies coming your way. Make sure to keep a solid strategy in mind: either focusing all forces in a single spot or leaving each other to take care of separated doors.

Concentrating the strength of two characters is obviously much safer since not only two characters kill things much faster, but if one of you dies accidentally the partner will be there to prevent things from getting out of hand.

Separated defense has its advantages too with the biggest one being the ability to clear waves faster and avoid any risks in losing the skull from the Par time. When playing like this you need to be attentive to what's happening and be ready to assist your partner in any way they need: be it from building an extra trap on their side or some direct assistance with you killing stuff for them.

Remember that co-op throws more enemies your way, so both of you need to be prepared for tougher waves with shared income.
___________________________________________________________

The power of two:

This is the most obvious and biggest advantage in playing co-op, you can defend different spots, but as I mentioned in the hint above be always careful that you'll be facing larger number of enemies and that can catch you off-guard sometimes.

Remember to keep an eye on the mini-map to see if everything is going smoothly and not to be caught by surprise if you leave your spot thinking no more enemies will be showing up.

Even when focusing your defenses in one spot you should be careful as Dynamite Archers and Gnoll Grenadiers can bring a lot of problems.
___________________________________________________________

Coins are not shared

Coin drops are not shared between players and only the one who picked it up will get the 100 coin bonus . If your partner is in charge of placing Barricades or has more expensive traps it won't hurt leaving it for them.

And don't be dumb enough to leave everything you're doing just to grab a coin, especially if dangerous enemies are around. It's beyond obnoxious when you have to deal with players like that.

Try to leave at least half of the coin drops for your partner.
___________________________________________________________

Selling each other's traps:

This can be a good thing, but also a source of frustration depending on who you're playing with. Be considerate and mindful if you're going to sell a trap placed from your partner (they will get a full refund), but doing it for no reason, especially in Rift Lord, or without some explicit warning can cause trouble for both of you.

But it helps to have a thicker skin and don't always think your partner is selling something because they think your trap setup is bad or anything. People always have different ideas or views on how traps should work.
___________________________________________________________

Communication: Pinging (or character voice emotes)

Pinging in this case means using the wheel to quickly alert your partner about things that are happening during the game through the voice emote ring. This is another reason to keep an eye on the mini-map whenever possible as a ping will be marked on it.

You can show your partner where to place Barricades or even ask for help in case something goes wrong for you, so it's always a good thing to keep in mind as this can help you coordinate yourselves much better, especially if your partner doesn't like to use voice chat.

The game will notify you with the character's own voice line. Be attentive to the mini-map as well to see where the warning came from.
___________________________________________________________

Uncooperative co-op partner?

I usually trade a few words if I feel I need to. If they ignore me or simply don't care about cooperation and coordination, most of times I just leave. I don't like spending time with people who play co-op as if their partner was a glorified AI companion.

If someone mentions something about how you play, maybe something they consider a bad habit from their point of view, don't take it personally and give it some thought. Sometimes you might be doing something detrimental in a co-op game that isn't in solo games. Sometimes you're doing something that clashes with that person's playing style, or vice-versa.

If none of you is willing to adapt to each other you'll either have to tough it out (rarely works in the long run) or just leave the game and find someone else.

___________________________________________________________

Be open to learning and teaching.

People have different views on how weapons and traps work and just because someone isn't using something the same way you are it doesn't mean they're using it "wrong". You can learn a lot more and faster from watching someone building trap setups and have that little thought pop in your head: "never had thought about that."

Give pointers, not orders! When teaching there's a huge difference between being rude and bossy and being someone who's trying to give advice.

If you see ineffective trap placement it's always good to give some pointers, but DON'T confront the person. Saying someone is outright wrong might create an air of hostility between you two and most likely make the person who you're talking to shut you down instantly.

Remember that getting upset because the person in question didn't do what you just asked them won't do you any good.
___________________________________________________________

Coordination

Although you all have full access to 10 slots of equipment it's will be good to plan ahead and bring different types of traps or weapons with different damage types, especially if you like going for combos.

Barricade is one of the best examples with the ideal setup having each person carrying a different Unique to save money when setting up Barricades here and there.

Another example can be of someone having more traps while the other player carries a more versatile arsenal of weapons and trinkets.

Having different uniques for each trap is often a good thing to help both of you.

🗺️ Hints and Tips: Mini-map

Mini-map, an unsung hero:

The mini-map is an important tool used for navigation during your battles and not only to see where you are at, you can use it to see many other things quickly.

Knowing how to make the best use of the mini-map often improves your reaction times and might even save a Perfect Victory in some cases. Keeping eye on the mini-map can help you catch a possible straggler (most likely a Kobold Runner or a Fire Fiend Runner) and prevent them from ruining everything.

Learning how to keep an eye on it during chaotic fights can be tough, but will definitely help you become a better player in the long run, especially if you decide to venture into Rift Lord difficulty.

Often overlooked and uncredited, the mini-map plays a vital role in helping you fight the Orc mob.

Enemy pathing:

During the planning phases, also known as "Go Breaks" (which doesn't happen in Rift Lord), you can see which path the enemies will take through the white dots traveling across the map. Drastic Steps DLC adds flyers to the mix and the route they'll take are signalized by white triangles.

Knowing where enemies will spawn from:
One of its best features is that it indicates which doors enemies will spawn from. Yellow doors are the ones that will be breached by enemies in this wave. Red doors are the doors that will spawn enemies in he current wave, and gray doors will not spawn enemies from it.
Paying attention where enemies will come from helps a lot since sometimes one of the spawns will not be active in a particular wave which can help you save money as you won't need to fortify said spot.

Pay attention to each door.

Different shape and colors denote different enemies:

Different types of enemies will show up in the map in different sizes or colors. Gnolls, one of the most troublesome enemies are shown with diamond shaped icons and Barricade breaking enemies are usually shown as yellow colored.

The importance of the mini-map in Co-op matches:
During co-op matches the mini-map also serves as a way to see where your partner is defending and how they are doing.
A good player is attentive to the map and they can quickly judge a situation and may notice if their partner is doing alright, or if they're having trouble with their enemies, or if they're about to lose control of the situation, or just in need of a quick assistance without needing to rush to their current position.

What each icon means:

White arrow - Your location
Blue arrow - Your partner's location/Your location when using a mountable War Machine

Orange squares - Barricades

White dots - Regular enemy path.
White triangle - Flying enemy path.

Red dots - Common enemies (Orcs and Fire Fiends).
Big red dots - Very heavy enemies (Ogres, Elementals, Trolls).
Red triangle - Flying enemies.

Red diamond - Gnolls Hunters.
Yellow diamond - Gnoll Grenadiers.

Yellow dots - Barricade breaking enemies (Kobold Sappers, Firelings, Dynamite Archers).

Star - Boss enemy.

Green dots - Potions and Coins.

Red doors - Active enemy spawn for this wave.
Gray doors - No enemies will spawn from that door.
Yellow doors - The door will be breached by enemies this wave.

💬 Characters: Health and Mana

Characters have different amounts of health and mana, so it's something to consider when picking them.

The character with more Health are: Vorwick, Kelsey and Max.
The character with more Mana are: Cygnus, Egan and Gabriella.

The health loss was meticulously calculated by an Armored Ogre's club in Rift Lord difficulty.
The mana loss was from the Ice Amulet secondary, probably the most mana heavy weapon in the game.

Special thanks to the Orcs Must Die! Wiki for this specific information. [orcsmustdie.fandom.com]

💬 Characters: Special Abilities

Orcs Must Die! 3 offers more than two characters to play around this time. However, you must complete the Campaign in any difficulty first to be able to use all of them freely, and swap their default weapons as well.

Each character does have one an unique ability called "Special Movement Ability" that is activated by double jumping, each of them works differently, so be careful not to try to use one ability with another character.

We're not missing anyone here... right?

______________________________________

Kelsey

"That right there-- should be extra credit!"

Voiced by: Kara Edwards
Default Weapon: Blunderbuss

Special Movement Ability: Levitate (Mana regeneration stops) & Air Walking (costs Mana)

Kelsey has more health than Egan which makes her a more favorable choice for close combat, however her Mana pool is lower compared to his.

Kelsey's special ability allows her to stay afloat in the air for indefinite periods of time, but it will cancel your natural Mana regeneration and you are vulnerable to ranged attacks. You can use to cross some gaps but beware that it also uses Mana while Kelsey is moving.

Kelsey's ability can let her attack enemies from better angles and keep her in the right height for easy headshots on bigger foes. Beware that it will stop the Mana regeneration while standing still and will quickly drain your Mana if you move.

______________________________________

Egan

"One for Team Order!"

Voiced by: Gabe Kunda
Default Weapon: Magic Longbow

Special Movement Ability: Ground Pound (costs Mana)

Egan has more Mana than Kelsey making him a better choice if you like to favor weapons that use more Mana.

Egan's special ability also consumes Mana to use, it can be used to Stun enemies around an area. The ability also knock enemies off their feet, so you can use it as a makeshift "get off me" move against most enemies, or use it to knock down some enemies and beat them with weapons that has no knockdown capabilities.

Tip:
Egan's ability deals damage and stun enemies. It also applies an unique counter to combos as well.

Egan's ability Stuns big and small enemies alike, but only small enemies will be thrown around.

______________________________________

Cygnus

"Yes. I am prepared."

Voiced by: Ian Sinclair
Default Weapon: Chain Lightning Staff

Special Movement Ability: Feign Death

Cygnus has the highest Mana pool of all characters in the roster, however he's the most fragile character with Armored Ogres being able to down him in two hits.

Cygnus' special ability allows him to recover health by playing dead on the ground. More than that it will make enemies forget about him which is nice to get you out of a pinch. It also increases Mana regeneration by a small bit, ever so slightly, so maybe this can help a little. Who knows.

Tip:
Cygnus' ability is more than meets the eye. You can avoid the charge attack of Ogres, explosion of Dynamite Archers and even Cyclops Mage's homing projectile with it. And you can also avoid getting mauled by Gnolls (particularly useful in late Endless matches), it will make them go away and, if you're alone, they'll head to the rift.

At first glance Cygnus' ability seems nearly useless compared to others, but once you learn its tactical advantages, like getting aggro'd enemies off your back (especially Ogres, Gnolls and Archers), it becomes one of the more useful abilities.

______________________________________

Vorwick

"The Order will be protected!"

Voiced by: Daman Mills
Default Weapon: Elven Shortswords

Special Movement Ability: Teleport

Vorwick is the character with the highest Health pool out of the six heroes available, a good choice for close combat, however this comes with the problem of having the lowest Mana of everyone.

Vorwick's special ability allows him to quickly travel horizontally across the map. The fact you can more or less spam it makes it faster than sprinting and you can use the teleport to get out of a hairy situation quickly as well. Be mindful of the distance as you can accidentally throw yourself into a pit if you're not careful.

Tips:
It's important to take note that Vorwick's teleport cannot go through enemies or obstacles. It can also be obstructed by traps like Dart Spitters and Haymakers.
The teleport will not be affected by a Gnoll Hunter's slowing attack, so you can use it to get away from them.

Vorwick's ability can be used to quickly travel to certain locations, escape Gnolls or reach a problematic target like an Archer harassing you.

______________________________________

Maximilian, the War Mage

"Max is handsome, sort of smart-ish-- he kills lots of ooooorcs~♫"

Voiced by: Rob McCollum
Signature Weapon: Crossbow

Special Movement Ability: Double Jump

Max stands in the middle ground having balanced Health and Mana. He has slightly less health than Kelsey, but slightly more Mana. Max is still tankier than Gabriella too.

Max's special ability returns from his old days as Miner; the simple, but practical Double Jump that can help you cross large gaps and gain some height, also being a good maneuver to jump in or out of battle as you feel like.

The double jump is as simple as it gets. You can cross larger gaps or jump over enemies to reach your desired location faster.

______________________________________

Gabriella, the Sorceress

"Winning still comes very easily to me."

Voiced by: Colleen Clinkerbeard
Signature Weapon: Scepter of Domination

Special Movement Ability: Feather Fall

Gabriella parallels Egan in status having a little bit more Health, but a bit less Mana.

Gabriella's special ability is her Feather Fall, she can considerably slow her descent. There aren't many maps with high places to make good use of this ability, though.

Feather Fall lets you analyse a situation before jumping into it.

🔓 Tidbit: Unlock Progression

Some of the equipment you can get in the game will be locked until a particular level has been finished at least once. A good reminder is that levels completed on the Apprentice difficulty will unlock the next piece of equipment, so if you're aiming for a particular Weapon or Trap you can beat it in that difficulty and go back to the previous level that was troubling you.

Unlocks through game progression are permanent and even better: they are free.

Example of things being unlocked through level completion. In this case the Ice Amulet weapon and the Rift Lord difficulty.

Some equipment can be bought and used at any given time, others will be only unlocked after beating a certain map for the first time.

1 - North Wing

Gravity Pillar

Trap (Ceiling)

2 - Great Room

Tar

Trap (Floor)

3 - Side Entrance

Healing Trinket

Trinket

4 - Hidden Dock

Barricade

Trap (Floor)

5 - Split Stairs

Giant Flip Trap
Mega Boom Barrel Launcher

War Machine (Floor)
War Machine (Floor/Mountable)

6 - The Lava Pits

Ice Amulet
Rift Lord (Nightmare) difficulty

Weapon
Misc.

7 - Close Quarters

Guardian Archer

Trap (Guardian)

8 - Cliffside

Bank of Archers
War Outpost

War Machine (Guardian)
War Machine (Floor)

9 - Front Lawn

Spike Wall

Trap (Wall)

10 - Coastal Hallways

Wall Charger

Trap (Wall)

11 - Secret Fortress

Snow Blower

War Machine (Floor)

12 - Mage Tower

Mana Rage Trinket
Scramble Mode

Trinket
Misc.

13 - Master's Courtyard

Decoy

Trap (Floor)

14 - Sludge Shelves

Flame Bracers

Weapon

15 - Dragon Boneyard

Auto Ballista

Trap (Ceiling)

16 - The Basement

Swinging Mace

Trap (Ceiling)

17 - Coloseum

Bowling Boulder

War Machine (Wall)

18 - Order Temple

Gabriella + Scepter of Domination
Maximillian + Crossbow
Cygnus + Chain Lightning Staff
Vorwick + Elven Shortswords
Slot 1 to swap default weapons

Misc.

💭 Tidbit: Elemental Damage and Status Effects

Forewords:

Before we move into the Enemies section I'll leave a table with the elemental damage that every Weapon, Trap and War Machine can have. This is in case you want to check a particular enemy and know what equipment can have the right damage for the said enemy and test the damage against the enemy.
____________________________

About Elemental damage and status effects:

Elemental damage is a good thing to keep in mind when creating trap courses as enemies often have different resistances and will take reduced damage from certain ones.

Can more than one effect/ailment be applied to enemies?

Yes! And you should for combos and better killing.

Element resistance damage:

Damage increased by +30%

Damage reduced by -50%

It's not uncommon for Status Effects, also known as Ailments, to be caused by elemental damage, although some of the more specific effects can be only caused by a few choice of traps or weapons.

For simplicity's sake I won't be detailing here what weapon and trap deals what elemental damage or what status effect. You'll be able to read in better detail about it in their specific sections.

* Kill enemies dead.

* Bladestaff
* Blunderbuss
* Broadsword
* Crossbow
* Dwarven Warhammer
* Elven Shortswords
* Magic Longbow
* Stone Staff

* Arrow Wall
* Auto Ballista
* Bank of Archers
* Bowling Boulder
* Ceiling Pounder
* Dart Spitter
* Decoy
* Grinder
* Guardian Archer
* Haymaker
* Knight
* Mega Boom Barrel Launcher
* Molten Gold
* Rapid Fire Ballista
* Rip Saw
* Saw Blade Launcher
* Spike Trap
* Spike Wall
* Swinging Mace
* Tornado in a Box
* Wall Blades

* Greatly increased damage against the enemy.

* Arcane Staff
* Blunderbuss
* Chain Lightning Staff
* Crossbow
* Magic Longbow
* Scepter of Domination
* Stone Staff

* None

* Enemies take damage over time.

* Enemies move 20% slower.

* Flame Bracers
* Flame Thrower

* Arrow Wall
* Bank of Archers
* Brimstone
* Ceiling Laser
* Floor Scorcher
* Guardian Archer
* Snow Blower
* Swinging Mace

* Stop enemies in their tracks.

* Enemies take increased damage from Physical attacks (30% more).

* Blunderbuss
* Ice Amulet

* Dart Spitter
* Deep Freeze
* Rip Saw
* Snow Cannon
* Snow Blower

* Enemies killed by Lightning explode damaging other enemies around them.

* Sometimes stun enemies for a very, very brief moment.

* Broadsword
* Chain Lightning Staff
* Ring of Storms

* Ceiling Laser
* Shock Zapper
* Spike Trap
* Wall Charger

* Enemies take increased
damage from all elements (15% more), including Arcane itself.

* Scepter of Domination
* Arcane Staff

* Auto Ballista
* Arcane Dragon
* Brimstone
* Priestess
* Spike Trap
* Window of Butterflies

* Enemies take increased Physical damage (50% more).

* Alchemist Satchel

* Acid Geyser
* Deep Freeze
* Snow Cannon

* Enemies take more damage from all sources (100% more).

* Bladestaff
* Blunderbuss
* Dwarven Warhammer
* Scepter of Domination
* Stone Staff
* Wind Belt

* Flip Trap
* Floor Scorcher
* Gravity Pillar
* Haymaker
* Push Trap
* Spike Wall
* Swinging Mace

* Enemies take damage over time.

* Magic Longbow
* Elven Shortswords

* Wall Blades
* Saw Blade Launcher
* Spike Wall

* Charmed enemies will fight
for your side and will explode
on death whether by your
attacks or other enemies.

* Scepter of Domination

* None

* Enemies will walk backwards.

* None

* Confusion Flower
* Window of Butterflies

* Enemies will walk backwards.

* Jar of Ghosts

* None

* Stop enemies in their tracks.

* Enemies take increased damage from Physical attacks (30% more).

* Stone Staff
* Cyclopean Gaze

* None

* Stop enemies in their tracks.

* Crossbow
* Chain Lightning Staff

* Ceiling Pounder
* Push Trap
* Shock Zapper
* Spike Wall
* Wall Charger

* Enemies may drop a small coin worth 25 money.

* None

* Molten Gold

* Enemies take increased Physical damage (50% more).

* Alchemist Satchel

* Acid Geyser
* Deep Freeze
* Snow Cannon

💭 Tidbit: General Table of Resistances and Weaknesses

General Table of Resistances and Weaknesses:

Reminder:

Element resistance damage:

Damage increased by +30%

Damage reduced by -50%

Enemies that weak against it:

* Cyclops Mage
* Zelzadore

* Heavy Orc
* Ogre
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Gnoll Hunter
* Gnoll Grenedier
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Cragg
* Ghorbash

* Ogre
* Troll
* Chromatica
* Cyclops Mage
* Medium Cyclops
* Heavy Cyclops
* Cyclops Mesmerizer
* Cyclops Shaman

* Heavy Orc
* Armored Ogre
* Mountain Troll
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Cragg
* Ghorbash
* Zelzadore

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Kobold Runner
* Kobold Sapper
* Ogre
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Trol
* Wraith Healer

* Fire Elemental
* Fireling
* Fire Lord
* Light Fire Fiend
* Medium Fire Fiend
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Runner
* Fire Fiend Mage
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Zelzadore
* Hellbat
* Hell Baby

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Ogre
* Wraith Healer
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord
* Fire Elemental
* Fireling
* Fire Lord
* Light Fire Fiend
* Medium Fire Fiend
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Runner
* Fire Fiend Mage
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Hellbat
* Hell Baby
* Shockbat
* Voidbat
* Bilebat

* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Frostbat
* Zelzadore
* Cyclops Mage
* Medium Cyclops
* Heavy Cyclops
* Cyclops Mesmerizer
* Cyclops Shaman

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Kobold Runner
* Kobold Sapper
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Wraith Healer

* Shockbat
* Zelzadore

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Ogre
* Wraith Healer
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord

* Gnoll Hunter
* Gnoll Grenedier
* Wraith Healer
* Cyclops Mage
* Fire Fiend Mage
* Zelzadore
* Cyclops Mage
* Medium Cyclops
* Heavy Cyclops
* Cyclops Mesmerizer
* Cyclops Shaman

* Cyclops Mage
* Medium Cyclops
* Heavy Cyclops
* Cyclops Mesmerizer
* Cyclops Shaman

* Bilebat

📙 Trap Tome

About the Traps:

A section dedicated to traps-- what they do, how they work and applications here and there.

Traps are what you'd consider "towers" in a regular Tower Defense game and are crucial to win. You'll need to learn, know and understand what traps work the best for you and this section is dedicated for this purpose and for players wanting a little heads up before spending their precious skulls.

As it is the norm with Orcs Must Die! the traps are separated in their distinct categories: Wall, Floor and Ceiling (no more exclusive category for Guardians, sadly). And each can be placed only in their respective surfaces, save for one special case.

Learning and customizing your trap courses is one of the most fun aspects of the game, so don't be afraid to test out anything, no matter how absurd it sounds or looks . You never know what you'll like and what will fit your playstyle.

Traps come in many varieties and types.

Trap with different types of activation:

Most traps activate once before having to reload, some of them, like the Arrow Wall, will fire more than once before starting to cooldown.

However there are some traps like Tar and the Ceiling Laser will be always active and will never to reload.

Traps like Arrow Walls and Spike trap are of the single fire type while traps like Tar will always affect ground enemies.

Different ranges for traps:

Before setting traps always make sure to check its range to avoid bad surprises, especially when it comes down to wall and ceiling traps.

Some traps like the Gravity Pillar and Ceiling Laser have infinite vertical range, and others like the Arrow Wall or the Saw Blade Launcher have limited activation range but its projectiles will travel much farther than its original range indicates.

Traps like the Arcane Dragon and Boom Barrel Dispenser act on their own without needing enemies to get into their range to trigger which can either work in your favor or against you depending on how you set them.

Grinders will always hit even fast enemies like Runners, but will need to "reload" after doing a certain amount of damage.

There's also traps like the Confusion lower and the Dart Spitter that has larger activation ranges than most traps which allows you to set them in different places to make your strategies work.

Some traps with different uniques have different ranges. Always check to avoid unwanted surprises.

Crowd Control Traps are important

What are crowd control traps? They're basically support traps, traps that while they usually don't deal damage, or deal a very modest amount of damage at best, they work wonders in hindering the progress of enemies or leave them vulnerable for other traps or your attacks.

Among these traps are Tar, Gravity Pillar, Confusion Flower, Window of Butterflies, Push Trap and Flip Trap . They can all be used in conjunction with other traps to create big and efficient killzones.

Remember: while killing Orcs is the key point of the game, killing them efficiently is probably even better. Damage is always good, but using crowd control traps and weapons will allow you to deal more damage to more enemies at once.

Test all types of crazy combinations you can think of. You never know if you're going to create a huge powerful killbox or a combo making heaven.

Floor Traps:

Acid Geyser

Barricade

Brimstone

Confusion Flower

Decoy

Flip Trap

Floor Scorcher

Guardian Archer

Rip Saw

Spike Trap

Tar

Wall Traps:

Arcane Dragon

Arrow Wall

Boom Barrel Dispenser

Deep Freeze

Grinder

Push Trap

Spike Wall

Wall Blades

Wall Charger

Window of Butterflies

Ceiling Traps:

Auto Ballista

Ceiling Pounder

Dart Spitter

Gravity Pillar

Haymaker

Shock Zapper

Snow Cannon

Swinging Mace

Drastic Steps DLC:

Saw Blade Launcher

Ceiling Laser

Cold as Eyes DLC:

Molten Gold

📜 Trap Tables (General)

OVERALL TABLE:

This thing ended up being so huge it needed its own section to fit the character limit.

Coins to build during maps:

Acid Geyser

Floor

Acid

4, 6, 8

8 — 8

700

Barricade

Floor

None

Game progression

4, 6, 8

6 — 6

1000, 950, 900, 800

(+400 with Unique 2)

Brimstone

Floor

Fire

Arcane (with Unique 2)

3, 6, 9

6 — 6

800

Confusion Flower

Floor

Ceiling (with Unique 2)

None

4, 6, 8

7 — 7

700

Decoy

Floor

Physical

Game progression

4, 6, 8

5 — 5

550

Flip Trap

Floor

None

4, 5, 6

5 — 5

600, 550, 500, 400

Floor Scorcher

Floor

Fire

4, 6, 8

8 — 8

800

Guardian Archer

Floor

Physical

Fire (with Unique 2)

Game progression

4, 6, 9

6 — 6

600

Rip Saw

Floor

Physical

Ice (with Unique 1)

3, 5, 8

7 — 7

750

Spike Trap

Floor

Physical (without Uniques)

Arcane (with Unique 1)

Lightning (with Unique 2)

Starter

3, 6, 8

5 — 5

300

Tar

Floor

None

Game progression

4, 7, 9

7 — 8

750

Arrow Wall

Wall

Physical

Fire (with Unique 1)

Starter

3, 6, 8

5 — 5

600

Arcane Dragon

Wall

Arcane

5, 7, 9

7 — 7

1000

Boom Barrel Dispenser

Wall

Physical

5, 6, 7

6 — 6

1000, 950, 800, 850

Deep Freeze

Wall

5, 7, 9

6 — 6

850

Grinder

Wall

Physical

5, 6, 7

7 — 7

1000

Push Trap

Wall

Physical

4, 5, 6

5 — 5

300

Spike Wall

Wall

Physical

Game progression

4, 6, 8

8 — 8

800

Wall Blades

Wall

Physical

3, 5, 7

6 — 6

750

Wall Charger

Wall

Lightning

Game progression

4, 6, 8

6 — 6

1000

Window of Butterflies

Wall

None

Arcane (with Unique 1)

3, 6, 9

7 — 7

700, 650, 600, 550

Auto Ballista

Ceiling

Physical

Arcane (with Unique 1)

Game progression

4, 8, 10

6 — 6

750

Ceiling Pounder

Ceiling

Physical

4, 6, 8

6 — 6

500

Dart Spitter

Ceiling

Physical

Ice (with Unique 1)

4, 6, 8

7 — 7

900

Gravity Pillar

Ceiling

Physical

Game progression

5, 7, 9

6 — 6

700

Haymaker

Ceiling

Physical

4, 5, 6

6 — 6

700

Shock Zapper

Ceiling

Lightning

5, 6, 7

6 — 6

800

Snow Cannon

Ceiling

3, 5, 7

6 — 6

1000

Swinging Mace

Ceiling

Physical

Fire (with Unique 2)

Game progression

5, 7, 9

7 — 7

1200

Ceiling Laser

Ceiling

Lightning

Fire (with Unique 2)

Drastic Steps DLC + 8

4, 6, 8

7 — 7

1000, 950, 900, 850

Saw Blade Launcher

Wall

Physical

Drastic Steps DLC + 10

4, 6, 8

7 — 7

700

Molten Gold

Ceiling

Physical

Cold as Eyes DLC

5, 5, 5

5 — 5

500

🔐 Trap Tables (Unlock Requirements)

Milestones to unlock Unique upgrades:

Acid Geyser

Floor

Deal 5000 damage.

Barricade

Floor

Place 15 Barricades.

Brimstone

Floor

Deal 1000 damage.

Confusion Flower

Floor/Ceiling

Confuse 100 enemies.

Decoy

Floor

Deal 2000 damage.

Flip Trap

Floor

Trigger 40 times.

Floor Scorcher

Floor/Wall

Burn 120 enemies.

Guardian Archer

Floor (Guardian)

Kill 50 enemies.

Rip Saw

Floor

Kill 50 enemies.

Spike Trap

Floor

Kill 50 enemies

Tar

Floor

Slow enemies for 600 seconds.

Arrow Wall

Wall

Deal 3000 damage.

Arcane Dragon

Wall

Kill 75 enemies.

Boom Barrel Dispenser

Wall

Kill 150 enemies.

Deep Freeze

Wall

Freeze 50 enemies.

Grinder

Wall

Deal 5000 damage.

Push Trap

Wall

Push 250 enemies.

Spike Wall

Wall

Kill 50 enemies.

Wall Blades

Wall

Kill 75 enemies.

Wall Charger

Wall

Kill 75 enemies.

Window of Butterflies

Wall

Confuse 60 enemies.

Auto Ballista

Ceiling

Deal 5000 damage.

Ceiling Pounder

Ceiling

Deal 2500 damage.

Dart Spitter

Ceiling

Deal 3000 damage.

Gravity Pillar

Ceiling

Affect 200 enemies.

Haymaker

Ceiling

Deal 750 damage.

Shock Zapper

Ceiling

Kill 100 enemies.

Snow Cannon

Ceiling

Freeze 75 enemies.

Swinging Mace

Ceiling

Kill 75 enemies.

Ceiling Laser

Ceiling

Deal 5000 damage.

Saw Blade Launcher

Wall

Kill 75 enemies.

Molten Gold

Ceiling

Spawn 100 coins

⠀⤷ Traps {Floor} [Part 1]

Traps covered in this section:

Acid Geyser
Barricade

________________________________________________________________

Acid Geyser:

Cost: 700
Damage Type: Acid

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique: 8 — 8

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 5000 damage.
Unique 1: Increase trap duration.
Unique 2: Increases Melt status duration.

Acid Geysers go well alongside physical damage traps.

Acid Geysers are traps that will spray acid around a small area when stepped on. They will apply the Melt debuff which makes enemies more vulnerable to the very common Physical damage and make

The damage output of this trap is modest at best. The Acid Geysers are more useful to keep enemies debuffed for your Physical traps and increase your combo counter more than to do big damage for you.

Unique 1 increases the duration of the trap acidic blast from 2 to 3 seconds.

Unique 2 increases the time the Melt ailment will last.

Melt Time without Unique 2

________________________________________________________________

Barricade:

Cost: 1000, 950, 850, 800 (less the more it is upgraded)
Damage Type: None

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Place 15 Barricades
Unique 1: Increase defense against colateral damage.
Unique 2: Increases size to 2 blocks and cost (+400 Coins).

Rerouting enemies is a very powerful strategy.

Barricade is perhaps the most unassuming traps of the game, but also one of the , of not the, most useful. They usually make the arduous task of having to defend a large map into something much simpler and easier to deal by allowing you to block the enemy's path or at least force a group march a narrow space making it much easier to crowd control them with your weapons.

One of the many applications of Barricades is to bottleneck, funnel, enemies into a single small space forcing them into the range of traps with short activation range like Wall Charger, Grinder and Wall Blades and as a bonus you'll be able to lump them together which will usually make it easier to control the mob and hit everything with area attacks of your own.

There are some precautions to be taken when you have Barricades on the field, though. First one being that you have to watch out if you're going melee near your Barricades as enemies attempting to fight back can and might inadvertently hit the Barricade and the damage adds up pretty quickly if you're reckless.

Kobold Sappers and Firelings are among the worst enemies for your Barricades . Setting Brimstone or Shock Zappers is a good idea to prevent them from hitting your Barricades, you can also intercept them yourself and use something like the Flame Bracers' secondary to prevent them from doing any harm.

Colateral damage is also a problem. Dynamite Archers and Gnoll Grenadiers can also bring a lot of trouble since their attacks have a pretty big area radius and they might hit your Barricades if you're fighting close to your traps. Always make sure to keep an eye on the mini-map for those yellow dots skittering amidst the crowd.

Tip:
The Trap Reset Trinket has an upgrade that repairs all Barricades. But in co-op it will only repair Barricades set by the trinket's owner.

Unique 1 increases the durability of the Barricades which is useful in maps where you know you'll be facing a ton of those pesky exploding enemies. As mentioned before the Trap Reset Trinket with a specific Unique can help keep these Barricades up.

Unique 2 increase the size and price for the Barricades so they'll be like two Barricades side-by-side. At max level the Barricade will cost 1200 coins which might feel very expensive, however two Barricades at max level usually would cost 1600 coins (800 each) and you'll be saving 400 coins on the first set of Barricades, 800 on two sets of Barricades... You can save plenty of money for traps during matches.

Barricades aren't used only to block other enemy paths, they can be used to create more efficient killboxes.

Long Barricades used to create a killbox.

⠀⤷ Traps {Floor} [Part 2]

Traps covered in this section:

Brimstone
Confusion Flower
Decoy

________________________________________________________________

Brimstone:

Cost: 800
Damage Type: Fire | Arcane (with Unique 2)

Skulls to buy: 7
Skulls to upgrade: 3, 6, 9
Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 1000 damage.
Unique 1: Reduced cooldown.
Unique 2: Converts damage into Arcane.

The checkerboard pattern is very useful to use with other traps like Tar, Spike Trap or Flip Trap.

Brimstone is a trap that's simple and does exactly what it implies: roasts anything that steps on it and will start recharging as soon it fades out after damaging a number of enemies. The regular Brimstone deals some damage over time, so you can leave a few gaps (like the checkerboard pattern) to let it do its full damage.

Brimstone is often used in conjunction with Tar and its Unique that increases fire damage since they pair up nicely. However due to how expensive this trap is it's often impractical to fill corridors with it and it's often better to have it spread out in a checkerboard pattern, or use it with Barricades to bottleneck enemies.

Unlike previous titles once the Brimstone "reloads" it will have most, if not all, of its charges restored ready to roast enemies instead of slowly recharging which makes this trap much more viable against the much more numerous horde.

This trap can also be used to protect your Decoys or Barricades making Sappers blow themselves up on it preserving your dummy protection for longer-- just make sure to set the Decoy or Barricade far enough so the Sapper's blast radius won't reach it.

Unique 1 will reduce its cooldown time before it becomes active again, and it works well with the Tar example mentioned above.

Unique 2 will swap its element from Fire to Arcane damage, allowing it to damage Fire Fiend and Fire Elementals which is good since late game is not shy about throwing these enemies at you.

Brimstone can be used both to do preventive damage to enemies before they step into your killzone or right into it.

The regular Brimstone and the Arcane one.
________________________________________________________________

Confusion Flower:

Cost: 700
Damage Type: None

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Uniques: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Confuse 100 enemies.
Unique 1: Trap can be placed on ceilings.
Unique 2: Increases pollen explosion radius.

The pollen bomb with increased explosion upgrade.

The Confusion Flower is a trap that will lob a pollen bomb that will confuse enemies hit by it and make them walk backwards to their original spawn point. It's one of the very few floor traps that doesn't require enemies walking directly under it to trigger and it has a good activation range being able to target enemies as far as two more traps side-by-side (above Barricades for example).

Placement is very important to this trap and setting one behind the other is usually a good idea as placing Confusion Flower side-by-side will usually result in them throwing their pollen bombs at the same direction which is a waste of shot.

Using the Confusion Flower at the middle or near the end of your trap course helps keeping enemies in the range of them as well.

If you use Barricade funneling you can also place the Confusion Flowers "outside" your killzone as this trap doesn't require enemies going directly under it to activate. This can provide more time so your traps can kill more enemies.

Unique 1 allows the Confusion Flowers to be placed on ceilings, ideal if you want to combine it with whatever trap setting you may have that needs floor space. The Confusion Flower has a low height activation, though, so it won't do anything if you place it on a ceiling too high.

Unique 2 is a nice little enhancement for this trap, it pairs well with most traps to force enemies to stay in killzones for more time.

Tip:
This trap works particularly well with Barricades creating large cluster of enemies since they can't walk over the other.

The ceiling upgrade can be used in conjunction with other ceiling traps, to position the flowers in a better spot, or to leave the ground open for other traps.
________________________________________________________________

Decoy:

Cost: 550
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique: 5 — 5

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 2000 damage.
Unique 1: Increases explosion radius and damage.
Unique 2: Decoy will Bleed enemies that attack it.

Decoy in action.

The Decoy is a funny little trap that will cause any aggressive enemy to attack it (about 4 to 5 minions), though passive ones like Runners and Earthlings will just ignore the thing and keep on with their rift point taking schedule.

While the Decoy is decently resilient when upgraded it will still be easily destroyed by big enemies like Elemental Lords, Mountain Trolls and Armored Ogres and it also has the bad tendency to draw attention from dangerous ranged enemies like Orc Archers and Cyclops Mages.

Unique 1 is good if you can pile up enemies around the Decoy to cause as much damage as possible. Using melee weapons is a good option for it.

Unique 2 causes Bleed to enemies that hit the Decoy. The bleeding damage doesn't add much to the damage pool of the Decoy, but it will take the shields off Orcs hands before exploding which is good if you can't do it yourself or supervise the Decoy in Rift Lord.

Tip:
Be particularly mindful of ranged enemies like Gnoll Grenadiers and Dynamite Archers as they will target a Decoy as soon as they can and if they do it near your Barricades it's almost certain they'll damage or destroy the Barricades through colateral damage.

Warning:
Unlike previous games the Decoy will NOT restore its health automatically.

Personal Opinion:
550 coins for a disposable trap still feels like a lot of money, if it cost 200 coins like the old Boom Barrel from Orcs Must DIe! 2 there would be some plausible use for this trap, but as it is now, this is the one trap I can't recommend at all.

Left to right: the regular Decoy, the explosion and damage upgrade, and the Bleed upgrade (notice the barbed wire around it).

⠀⤷ Traps {Floor} [Part 3]

Traps covered in this section:

Flip Trap
Floor Scorcher
Guardian Archer

________________________________________________________________

Flip Trap:

Cost: 600, 550, 500, 400
Damage Type: None

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 5, 6
Unique: 5 — 5

Condition to unlock Uniques: Activate the trap 40 times.
Unique 1: Decreases reset time.
Unique 2: Flip Very Heavy enemies (Ogres, Trolls, Elemental Lords, Cyclops Mages)

Flip Traps in its natural state: sending Orcs in a one-way trip into a pit.

Flip Traps are funny little things that will throw any enemy unfortunate to step on them, however the distance depends on the size/weight of the enemy (and an Unique if the enemy is of the very heavy weight category).

The Flip Traps can have more utilities than merely using them to chuck enemies to their instant doom into pits, you can use them to throw enemies back to the beginning of your trap course. You can also aim them towards walls so they'll stall enemies without wasting too much time, and maybe even on things like higher placed Wall Blades or Grinders.

Just make sure to keep in mind their range as you can set them into places where light enemies like Orcs will be throw over where you expected causing problems for yourself. Also be mindful of Runner enemies as they can easily blaze through this trap unscathed if nothing is there to slow them down.

Unique 1 is perfect if you're planning to fill in the place with this type of trap, with enough numbers even a large number of enemies will have trouble getting through, except the big ones, of course.

Unique 2 is good to handle the bigger foes, however take note that the Flip Trap's throw range will be absolutely pathetic. This upgrade is meant to stall the big enemies, not throw them far away.

Flip Traps aren't used only to launch enemies into pits, you can use it to stall them in your killzone as well.
________________________________________________________________

Floor Scorcher:

Cost: 800
Damage Type: Fire

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique: 8 — 8

Condition to unlock Uniques: Burn 120 enemies.
Unique 1: Increases trap range.
Unique 2: Trap can be also placed on walls.

Floor Scorcher is a trap with a different activation method: it will fire if enemies goes in front of it instead of merely stepping on it. It will fire a stream of fire for a few moments and roast anything that it hits.

The damage of this trap is modest, bordering on low, a far cry from its glory days in the previous game, and it's meant to be a complementary trap, or combo incrementer, rather than the one that will do the killing. Due to its narrow straight line attack it's also not nearly as good to set in the side lines as it was in the previous game either .

The Floor Scorcher doubles as some sort of physics trap since it will flip enemies up to heavy weight that steps on it, this can be used to stall or throw enemies slightly back on your trap course while roasting the ones that gets past it.

Keep in mind that the orientation for this trap is very important. A poorly set Floor Scorcher will throw enemies away from other traps which can reduce the effectiveness of your trap course, so be very careful.

Unique 1 increases the range of this trap to make it hit more enemies either in wider corridors or at the start or the end of a Barricade funneling.

Unique 2 gives this trap a lot of versatility since you can place it in several places where most of other wall traps would be beyond useless. Try it out and be creative when setting the Scorcher to enhance your killzones.

The wall upgrade allows this trap to be set in unorthodox places.
________________________________________________________________

Guardian Archer:

Cost: 600
Damage Type: Physical | Fire (with Unique 2)

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 9
Unique: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 50 enemies.
Unique 1: Archers regenerate Health slowly.
Unique 2: Archers now deal Fire damage.

More or less the range of Guardian Archers.

The Guardian Archers are sentries that will take aim and fire at enemies from a decent distance and their arrows are very fast and precise. They're the only Guardians available in regular maps as of this writing and are smaller than most floor traps having the size of 1x1 instead of the normal 2x2.

One of the first and more important things to watch out for when using these Guardians is that Guardian Archers can be killed by enemies and they will not respawn until the next "Go Break", so you must be careful with their placement and make sure to keep them safe from many other dangerous enemies like Dynamite Archers and Gnolls as if they get the chance to go after your Archers they will. "Go Breaks" do not happen in Rift Lord difficulty so you need to be extra careful when keeping Guardians in that difficulty.

Among the enemies that can easily cause problems for your Archers are:

Kobold Sappers (they'll prioritize Guardians as well)
Gnolls (they ignore Barricades and specifically target players and Guardians)
Dynamite Archers (very high damage in a wide area, can easily kill several Archers even with Health regen)
Cyclops Mages (high damage homing attack that outrange Archers)

Unlike the previous game Archers don't have a target priority and will fire at the first thing that gets in their sights , be it an Orc or an Ogre. They're not very impressive in small numbers either, so you need to hire a lot of them to do considerable damage against larger number of enemies or bigger foes.

Unique 1 is ideal if you set Archers close to enemy lines, but do keep in mind that they're still fragile and will not be able to deal with dangerous things like Gnolls, Mages or Dynamite Archers.

Unique 2 is good to deal with Heavy Orcs, Ogres and Trolls in general, but you have to be careful with enemies immune to fire like Fire Elementals, Fire Fiend and Firebats as they'll be useless against them with this Unique.

Guardian Archers are pretty fragile, but in numbers can be a good helping hand. Make sure to leave them away from Orc Archers, Dynamite Archers and Gnoll Grenediers.

From left to right: regular Guardian Archer, with Health Regen upgrade, Fire Damage upgrade.

⠀⤷ Traps {Floor} [Part 4]

Traps covered in this section:

Rip Saw
Spike Trap
Tar

________________________________________________________________

Rip Saw:

Cost: 750
Damage Type: Physical | Ice (with Unique 1)

Skulls to buy: None
Skulls to upgrade: 3, 5, 8
Unique: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 50 enemies.
Unique 1: Converts damage into Ice.
Unique 2: Reduced cooldown.

Rip Saws are great when used with Barricade funneling.

The Rip Saw is a trap with an odd sizing, standing at 6x1 instead of the usual 2x2, for reference it's as large as 3 Tar or Brimstones placed side-by-side with half of their width.

The Rip Saw will quickly strike enemies twice after being activated and it deals a decent amount of damage to enemies, due to its price, however, it can be difficult to set without using the Barricade funneling.

Placement is very important to this trap, more than usual, due to its increased length and the way it activated you can set it vertically with a few gaps between each other to save some money if you don't use Barricades.

Unique 1 gives the trap the ice element instead of physical. Being one of the few traps that can deal ice damage this is a good choice to pick when you're dealing with maps that has a lot of Fire Fiends or Fire Elementals.

Unique 2 is self-explanatory, faster cooldown means it will trigger faster as well. Nice to go along with the Trap Reset Trinket too.
________________________________________________________________

Spike Trap:

Cost: 300
Damage Type: Physical (no Unique)
Lightning (with Unique 1) | Arcane (with Unique 2)

Skulls to buy: None
Skulls to upgrade: 3, 6, 8
Unique: 5 — 5

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 3000 damage.
Unique 1: Deals Lightning damage.
Unique 2: Deals Arcane damage.

The Spike Trap's damage is modest, but it's so cheap you can fill entire killzones with it. Just don't overdo it.

The Spike Trap is a simple, single firing trap that will activate as soon any hapless enemy steps on it dealing damage to it. It's fairly affordable costing 300 coins, so it might be very easy to fill entire spots with it. However the selling point of this trap is its versatility granted by its Unique upgrades, it can hold a variety of elements to help diversify your killzones.

Keep in mind that the Spike Trap only hits once, so it might be much less effective on their on at Rift Lord difficulty where Orcs bring shields to tank the first hit. It also doesn't hit very hard, so don't rely on it to deal with heavier threats.

One of the most usual ways to use this trap is to make a "checkerboard" style with Tar or Brimstone going along it with.

Unique 1 gives the Spike Trap Lightning damage to electrify enemies that it damages for a moment. It helps that no ground enemies resist this type of damage and it can be helpful dealing a bit with Heavy Orcs.

Unique 2 will convert its damage into Arcane giving you a chance to deal increased elemental damage to enemies.

The Arcane Spike Trap. This seemingly meek trap won't do much on its own, but it's an affordable option for your trap setups if you need something else for the floor.
________________________________________________________________

Tar:

Cost: 750
Damage Type: None

Skulls to buy: None
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 7, 9

Condition to unlock Uniques: Slow enemies for 600 seconds (5 minutes).
Unique 1: Enemies remain slowed for a brief time.
Unique 2: Increases Fire damage while on Tar.

You don't need to cover every bit of the floor to get the most of Tar in some cases. Useful since Tar is so expensive now.

Tar is an old friend and something that newcomers will love and veterans respect due to its sheer usefulness. However Tar should be used in moderation (unlike the first two games) since not only it's quite expensive, costing 750 coins, but the Par Times are much less lenient this time around.

Tar will slow enemies down, more the more upgraded it is, and is the perfect tool to either hamper the horde coming your way and give you time to deal with enemies, let them take fire from your other traps and prevent them from rushing your trap course too quickly. Tar remains extremely versatile and there are hardly any traps where it doesn't synergies well with.

Unique 1 is good if you want to save some money. The enemies will remain slowed down for approximately 1 Tar trap worth of distance - 1 full regular trap square size if like that comparison better - and you can create gaps placing other Floor Traps in between as you please.

Unique 2 is the way to get the most out of your Fire attacks (Flame Braces, Flame Swinging Mace, Brimstone, etc...). You can do stuff like placing a Brimstone and a Tar in front of it to increase its damage among other things.

The increased fire damage upgrade work wonders against anything that isn't fire immune.

⠀➥ Traps {Wall} [Part 1]

Traps covered in this section:

Arrow Wall
Arcane Dragon
Boom Barrel Dispenser

________________________________________________________________

Arrow Wall:

Cost: 600
Damage Type: Physical | Fire (with Unique 1)

Skulls to upgrade: 3, 6, 8
Uniques: 5 — 5

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 3000 damage.
Unique 1: Deals Fire damage.
Unique 2: Pierces enemies.

The Arrow Wall trap is still one of the more versatile and reliable traps in the spellbook.

Arrow Wall is a trap that requires little explanation, it's a simple trap with good damage output and some versatility in its Unique upgrades. It's fairly cheap costing merely 600 coins too. It might be a basic trap, but it's nothing to sneeze at.

The simplicity of this trap belies how useful it actually is, since the Arrow Wall is one of the very few traps that can hit more than one lane of enemies in a corridor it's a good tool to wound groups of enemies (with the right upgrade) or at least pick off the shields from Orcs in Rift Lord.

Unique 1 has it change to fire damage. Fire damage also makes this trap deal more damage to Heavy Orcs and Armored Ogres. However take note that later in the game enemies like Fire Fiends and Fire Elementals will show up very often making this trap less useful.

Unique 2 is good to use around corners or when piling up enemies with Tar and/or Barricades. It will be still considered as Physical damage, so plenty of heavy enemies will resist it, though.

The Arrow Wall projectiles can reach far more than what its trigger range indicates. Setting it around corners on in the back of long hallways is also a good idea to get the most out of this trap when you set it in scattered places.

The fire upgrade is capable of doing very good damage against most non-fire immune enemies.
________________________________________________________________

Arcane Dragon:

Cost: 1000
Damage Type: Arcane

Skulls to buy: 10
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 7, 9
Uniques: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 75 enemies.
Unique 1: Increases duration of Arcane ailment.
Unique 2: Bounces off walls once.

The Arcane Dragon is usually best used in long Barricades bottlenecks or places where the bounce can hit several enemies lined up, preferentially with Elemental damage to complement it.

The Arcane Dragon is an odd trap that will constantly fire its projectiles without the need of enemies getting in front of it. The caveat is that its cooldown is fairly long, and its price of 1000 coins is somewhat expensive.

This firing pattern makes placing it with different timings, waiting a few seconds before setting another one if they're back-to-back, a key element to make multiple Arcane Dragons effective in certain cases, like setting one close to each other.

Even when fully upgraded the projectile damage of this trap is pretty low and will not wound anything beyond a Medium Orc reliably, it will barely trickle the health of regular Ogres in Rift Lord. The main function of this trap is to spread the Arcane status condition so other elemental, stronger traps finish the job.

Example of a back-to-back Arcane Dragon setup. Wait a few seconds to set the other one to maximize the time projectiles from all traps will be traveling.

Warning:
Due to how this trap works the Trap Reset Trinket will not work for this trap.

Another Warning:
The surface must be perfectly flat for the bounce reflect the projectile back to the same wall.

If the projectile hits any corners it will fly at odd angles...

Arcane debuff without Unique 1

Arcane debuff with Unique 1

Although expensive only a handful of this trap is necessary in most cases.
________________________________________________________________

Boom Barrel Dispenser:

Cost: 1000, 950, 900, 850
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: 8
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 6, 7
Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 150 enemies.
Unique 1: Increased explosion area.
Unique 2: Decreases the height needed for barrels to explode.

Get ready for some explosions.

This is an interesting trap with many applications. The Boom Barrel Dispenser can be placed in many, many ways and is an excellent complimentary trap for most setups you can think of, it's one of the few traps that I tend to pick whenever I have a free slot. I'll show some of the applications in images because it will be far easier to show than to just explain.

The Boom Barrel Dispenser will spawn barrels at somewhat slow pace, one right away as the trap is built and more each 15 seconds, take note that the barrels will roll pretty far from where the trap is placed. If you're planning on using this trap as the sole damage dealer you might need a way to stall enemies.

How far the barrels roll off the trap. Floor traps will influence , shorten, the distance.

Warning:
Due to how this trap works the Trap Reset Trinket will not work for this trap.

The barrels created by this trap deals Physical damage, so it's not ideal to kill very heavy enemies, however it will clear even the largest group of smaller enemies with ease.

The Unique 1 is good if you plan on using the boom barrels near other traps. Even if they won't explode upon falling on the ground you might explode them during combat or through other traps.

The Unique 2 drastically decreases the height needed for the barrels to explode and is ideal if you don't want to "babysit" this trap and set the boom barrels yourself. It's a good option to set this trap on top of another trap like a Grinder or Arrow Wall.

The height difference needed for the barrels to explode when falling on the ground: without (left) and with (right) the Unique upgrade.

Most types of damages, including from other traps, will set the barrels off. You can set a trap near the barrels so you don't have to detonate them off manually.

Setting the trap on the right height to rain death on enemies.

⠀➥ Traps {Wall} [Part 2]

Weapons covered in this section:

Grinder
Deep Freeze
Push Trap

________________________________________________________________

Grinder:

Cost: 1000
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: 7
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 6, 7
Uniques: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 5000 damage.
Unique 1: Slow enemies in range.
Unique 2: Increases time trap can damage enemies before jamming.

Grinder is good way to deal with numerous Runner enemies. It will blow up Sappers as well, but keep in mind Sappers drain a lot more of the Grinder's gauge than tiny Runners.

Grinder is a trap that will deal constant damage to whatever gets into its range. It's a very short range trap that almost always needs the aid of Barricades to hit enemies efficiently, but without them it will still hit enemies that walks close to walls.

One of the uses of Grinders is to set them near Barricades to intercept Kobold Sappers, but beware that without the right Unique the Grinder will jam quickly after killing about 3~4 without it and 4~5 with it.

Be careful when dealing with very heavy enemies and anything that resists Physical damage, including the very common Heavy Orc, since they'll make the Grinders jam much faster than usual.

Another thing to watch out for is that even Medium Orcs can power through this trap, especially if they're carrying shields since the Grinder won't make enemies flinch when they take damage from it.

Unique 1 is an interesting upgrade in that it slow enemies like Tar, but not on the same grade and can be used if you want to leave the group open for other floor traps like Acid Geyser, Spike Trap or Brimstone.

Unique 2 is simple enough, it makes the Grinder mow down more things before jamming.
________________________________________________________________

Deep Freeze:

Cost: 850
Damage Type: Ice | Acid (with Unique 2)

Skulls to buy: 4
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 7, 9
Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Freeze 50 enemies.
Unique 1: Increases trap range.
Unique 2: Converts damage into Acid.

With the increased range Unique the Deep Freeze can trigger from walls that are farther than usual turning it into a good complimentary trap.

Deep Freeze is a trap that fires a single ice/acid blast against anything that goes in front of it, the blast does a decent amount of damage and causes freezing against anything that it hits. It will do very good damage against the Orcs, but since it hits only once it will not pierce their shields.

This trap is fairly pricey standing at 850 coins, so it shouldn't be used solely for killzones, it will work better as a complimentary trap either as crowd control to keep enemies in check in your killzone. Or to decrease the defense of enemies against Physical damage with the Acid upgrade.

Unique 1 increases the range of this trap enough for it to trigger even in wider hallways or hit more enemies when set around corners.

Unique 2 converts the trap into Acid damage. The damage is still good enough and the Acid damage helps Physical traps deal with the wide array of Physical resistant enemies present in the game.

The Acid version of Deep Freeze.
________________________________________________________________

Push Trap:

Cost: 300
Damage Type: None | Physical (with Unique 2)

Skulls to buy: 4
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 5, 6
Uniques: 5 — 5

Condition to unlock Uniques: Push 250 enemies.
Unique 1: Stun enemies.
Unique 2: Trap also deals damage.

Push Traps in its natural state: pushing Orcs to their doom.

Push Trap a simple trap that does exactly what its name says: it pushes things that goes near it. The range of this trap is pretty short. Normally this trap is used to simply throw enemies into pits or the oversized Grinders built in some maps.

As it is with any physics trap this trap won't affect very heavy enemies at all and without Unique upgrade will be completely ineffective against them.

Unique 1 will cause the trap to Stun enemies. You can set it in narrow corridors to stall enemies. Another use for this upgrade is, if you set it right, to throw enemies into other traps that deal extra damage to Stunned enemies (Ceiling Pounder and Wall Blades).

The same Unique has the benefit of being of some use against very heavy enemies as it will at least Stun them in place for a few moments.

Unique 2 causes the trap do deal damage, but the damage is below modest, it's paltry and even if you fill an entire room full with Push Traps they'll hardly do anything meaningful in War Mage difficulty, let alone in Rift Lord.

A simple example of a setup for the Unique 1, the Stun upgrade.

⠀➥ Traps {Wall} [Part 3]

Traps covered in this section:

Spike Wall
Wall Blades
Wall Charger
Window of Butterflies

________________________________________________________________

Spike Wall:

Cost: 800
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Uniques: 8 — 8

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 50 enemies.
Unique 1: Causes Bleed on hit.
Unique 2: Causes Stun on hit.

A Spike Wall launching a small enemy back and tripping an Ogre.

Spike Walls are big traps, 4x2 instead of 2x2, they're worth two Arrow Walls side-by-side, or on top of each other if you rotate them that way (yes, this can be done). Given their size the price for them is relatively good standing at 800 coins.

Spike Walls are among the very few traps that can trip very heavy enemies like Ogres, Trolls and Elemental Lords, the only other trap capable of doing this is the Flip Trap (with the right Unique). It won't throw them very far, however, but it can be used to stall and damage them.

If you rotate this trap aiming them downwards or upwards you can make it smash enemies or throw them upwards, the Spike Wall placed with this orientation will also save some horizontal space in the walls as well.

Unique 2 can be useful if you can space it right so other traps that deals increased damage to Stunned enemies will activate (like Ceiling Pounder and Wall Blades), you can also use the Wind Belt to push enemies into them as well. Forcing the Spike Wall to throw enemies into another wall with traps that deal higher damage to Stunned enemies is also another way to make the most of this unique.

Spike Walls in vertical orientation. Aimed downwards they'll knock down all enemies for a shorter time, but aimed upwards they'll throw lighter enemies pretty high.
________________________________________________________________

Wall Blades:

Cost: 750
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls to upgrade: 3, 5, 7
Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 75 enemies.
Unique 1: Causes Bleed to enemies.
Unique 2: Deals more damage to Stunned enemies.

Wall Blades at work.

The Wall Blades is a short ranged trap that does damage to anything that goes near it. It does a pretty good amount of damage against everything up to a Heavy Orc and can hit more than one enemy, but they need to be really close to each other.

When compared to Grinder the Wall Blades are more of a single burst, bigger damage, type of trap whereas the Grinder deals lower, but more constant damage. Neither are recommended options be the main option to take down tougher customers like Ogres and Trolls, however.

Unique 1 gives this trap the Bleed status effect, the damage itself doesn't add much and it's probably best used for combos.

Unique 2 needs something to Stun enemies before this trap triggers. Crossbow's secondary, Chain Lighting secondary with the right Unique, the Shock Zapper or Ceiling Pounder and Spike Wall with the right Unique will help the Wall Blades with this Unique.

Wall Blades are unimpressive on their own, but with aid of crowd control traps they become a pretty useful, and relatively cheap, trap.
________________________________________________________________

Wall Charger:

Cost: 1000
Damage Type: Lightning

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 75 enemies.
Unique 1: Stun enemies.
Unique 2: Deals increased damage to electrified enemies.

Wall Charger is a good option to deal with crowds of enemies.

Wall Chargers is a short ranged trap that deals Lightning damage against enemies that walk close to it. It's a trap that will deal a considerable amount of damage to the ever annoying Armored Ogre.

One of the best points of this trap is the fact it has potential to kill more than one enemy not only by hitting them pretty hard, but by making them exploding with the Lightning effect. The trap also has pretty good damage that can be further enhanced by Arcane and an Unique upgrade.

Unique 1 causes the Wall Charge to Stun anything that it hits which can be useful if you have several of them lined up and ready to kill enemies.

Unique 2 is a bit of an oddball of Unique that needs enemies to be affected by Lightning damage. The Ceiling Laser is the perfect trap to use with this upgrade, but the Shock Zapper, the Lightning Spike Trap, or the Chain Lightning Staff, Broadsword and the Ring of Storms can also be used to get this Unique to work.
________________________________________________________________

Window of Butterflies:

Cost: 700, 650, 600, 550 (lower the more it is upgraded)
Damage Type: None | Arcane (Unique 1)

Skulls to buy: 5
Skulls to upgrade: 3, 6, 9
Uniques: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Confuse 60 enemies.
Unique 1: Deals Arcane damage.
Unique 2: Confusion lasts longer.

Due to its larger (but short) activation range this trap will trigger even if set on top of other wall traps. Keep in mind that when set like that it won't trigger if a small enemy like Runners goes near it.

The Window of Butterflies is an interesting trap that basically works like the Confusion Flower but must be set on walls. The activation range of this trap is short, but has wider range and can be set on top of other wall traps without the risk of Orcs and bigger enemies not triggering it.

This is one of the best complimentary traps due to its size (also being decently priced when fully upgraded) and can be placed in several ways to help you. It's one of the better options to reinforce your Barricaded killzones and help less enemies go through it or even prevent them from going through it at all if set correctly with other traps.

Unique 1 gives this trap the Arcane damage, but the damage itself is pretty humble and shouldn't be counted on to kill anything. It's far more useful to spread the Arcane debuff even though the game will show only the Confusion status effect.

Unique 2 increases the distraction time from 3 to 4 seconds (estimation).

Tip:
Like the Confusion Flower this trap works very well with Barricades to create cluster of enemies.

The Window of Butterflies will trigger even if set on unconventional places for walls traps due to its large range of activation. And thanks to the said range it will be able to catch a few Runners, if set at lower height, too.

⠀⤷ Traps {Ceiling} [Part 1]

Traps covered in this section:

Auto Ballista
Ceiling Pounder
Dart Spitter

________________________________________________________________

Auto Ballista:

Cost: 750
Damage Type: Physical | Arcane (Unique 2)

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 8, 10
Unique 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 5000 damage.
Unique 1: Gives the trap Arcane damage.
Unique 2: Increases trap's range.

The Auto Ballista can be set in almost every ceiling as complimentary trap.

Auto Ballista is a small ceiling trap, it's worth 1x1 size instead of the normal 2x2 of most traps. It's fairly affordable costing 750 and being capable of holding Arcane damage means it will be effective against big targets like Armored Ogres and Mountain Trolls as well.

Be mindful of its placement and spacing, though. Setting them side-by-side will most likely make them fire at one target, which in most cases is overkill, but setting them more or less one behind the other may prevent this from happening as often. The fact it's so small also helps setting several of this trap in a single spot enhancing your killzone.

Another use for this trap is setting it past your killzone to catch anything that could've survived your initial trap course. However you have to make sure to set them where they won't fire at anything passing by.

Tips:
The Auto Ballista has a very long vertical range which means it will trigger in very high ceilings as well.
It's also a very good trap to set after your killzone to catch anything that may get past it. Consider putting a handful of them like this for extra safety.

Unique 1 gives you another source of Arcane damage and some of the tougher enemies that are resistant to Physical damage will not take reduced damage from this trap anymore.

Unique 2 gives the Auto Ballistae more time to shoot at enemies and can be very useful if you place them aiming towards your Rift instead of aiming them at the enemy spawn point.

The Arcane element is always good to deal with heavier threats since most of them are resistant to Physical damage.
________________________________________________________________

Ceiling Pounder:

Cost: 500
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: 5
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 2500 damage.
Unique 1: Stuns Enemies.
Unique 2: Increases damage against Stunned enemies.

The Ceiling Pounder is a basic ceiling trap that smashes anything going underneath it, it has a low activation range, so it must be placed on low ceiling to work. It isn't as flashy as other traps, but it gets the job done and it's very cheap as well, costing mere 500 coins.

This trap hits enemies once, so it will be less effective against large hordes of Orcs carrying shields on Rift Lord. The fact it deals Physical damage makes it somewhat ineffective against large threats as well, however the Ceiling Pounder has a few tricks up its sleeve with its Uniques...

Unique 1 gives this trap a Stun effect which can be nice when paired with Tar, Confusion Flowers or Window of Butterflies. Having plenty of these in a hallway is a good way to deal with a moderate amount of enemies.

Unique 2 is trickier to make use of, it's usually suited if you narrow down the enemies path with Barricades or in conjunction with the Push Trap in wider areas. The only weapons with Stun capabilities are the Crossbow and Chain Lightning Staff (with the correct Unique).
________________________________________________________________

Dart Spitter:

Cost: 900
Damage Type: Physical | Ice (with Unique)

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 3000 damage.
Unique 1: Deals Ice Damage.
Unique 2: Doubles active duration.

Dart Spitter boasts a large activation range and damages everything over a bigger area as well.

The Dart Spitter is a very nice ceiling trap that has some interesting uses and nice properties that pairs very well with other many other traps. Its activation range is much larger than other ceiling traps being everything surrounding it, however it does come at a fairly high cost of 900 coins.

Due to its expensive price it's not meant to be the only ceiling trap being best set at the center of your killzone, or by the side of your other ceiling traps in case you do the Barricade bottlenecking tactic.

The damage of this trap is also fairly good and since it hits multiple times it will have no problem at picking off shields from Orcs in Rift Lord.

Tip:
Try mixing the Dart Spitter, especially the Ice damage upgrade, with other ceiling traps.

Unique 1 is very useful due to its good damage and the overabundance of enemies resistant to Physical damage, it can shred through anything that isn't resistant to Ice and freeze anything that it hits giving you and your other traps more time to kill everything.

Unique 2 is also very good since it essentially doubles the active time of the Dart Spitter, and you will most likely place a good number of this trap in your killzone. Do keep in mind that a lot of tough game is resistant to Physical damage, though.

Dart Spitters can be used in conjunction with many other ceiling traps due to its large activation range.

⠀⤷ Traps {Ceiling} [Part 2]

Traps covered in this section:

Gravity Pillar
Haymaker

________________________________________________________________

Gravity Pillar:

Cost: 700
Damage Type: None | Physical (with Unique 1)

Skulls to upgrade: 5, 7, 9
Unique: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Lift 200 enemies.
Unique 1: Deals damage.
Unique 2: Increases lift duration (from 6 to 8 seconds).

Gravity Pillars when used in low ceilings can slow smaller enemies as much as Tar does.

The Gravity Pillar is an odd trap that will lift enemies that goes through it and can be a powerful asset to your trap course, provided you take note of its quirks.

This trap is the one of the few that has virtually no vertical range limit. No matter how high the ceiling is it will trigger as long as the enemies go under it. However it won't affect heavy enemies like Ogres, Trolls and Cyclopses.

Tips:
This is one of the few traps that can will hit Runner enemies perfectly since it will trigger as soon as something goes under it.
It also make enemies airborne which means they'll take double damage from all sources.

It's can be also used against Fire Elementals (not Lords) to lift them and prevent them from spawning Firelings in the middle of your Barricades damaging them.

On low ceilings this trap does a good job at creating big cluster of Orcs and other light enemies, especially if set on a Barricade funneling corridor setup. When used with Tar it can significantly stall enemies that aren't immune to it.

On high ceilings you have to watch out as most wall traps can easily lift them far from the their range. With that said you can set Grinders or higher walls so the Gravity Pillar will pull enemies right into it, just be careful not to set them where they'll make your other ground level traps useless. Lastly enemies being lifted higher can be blown farther away with the Wind Belt, and they'll take a bit of damage when they are dropped on the ground.

Unique 1 will make enemies take damage as long as they're being pulled upwards. The damage is modest, but is constant and will do take shields off Orc hands, this can be a good upgrade to be used to add more damage to your other traps. This upgrade will damage flying enemies from Drastic Steps as well.

Unique 2 does a good job at creating cluster of enemies on all types of ceilings and it's usually a good idea to set them before your trap course so enemies will be bunched together for your other traps.

A setup for Gravity Pillars in high ceilings. Grinders, Wall Blades and Wall Chargers are popular choices for variants.

The infinite vertical range and instant activation makes this trap more useful than it seems.
________________________________________________________________

Haymaker:

Cost: 700
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: 5
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 5, 6
Unique: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 750 damage.
Unique 1: Increases active duration.
Unique 2: Increase knockback force.

Haymakers will throw enemies up to heavy (not very heavy) weight around and halt their progress.

The Haymaker is a nice ceiling trap that will bash up to heavy weight enemies around, but it has low range activation and requires low ceilings to work. It's priced at 700 coins which is affordable for the most part.

Enemies from light to heavy weight will be smacked around by this trap, but very heavy enemies like Ogres, Trolls and Cyclops Mages won't be thrown around, but the Haymaker is no less effective as these enemies will still take constant damage while walking through it. The fact it also hit targets multiple times means it will have little trouble dealing damage to Orcs carrying shields.

Tip:
Reminder that Haymaker make lighter enemies airborne, airborne enemies take double damage. But as it is with the vast majority of traps with physics effects Haymakers won't throw very heavy weight enemies.

Unique 1 is good as an all-purpose ceiling trap that keeps dealing damage to groups of enemies.

Unique 2 is great to use in wider trap courses to make the Haymaker throw enemies around other Haymakers or other traps. It shouldn't be used if you're using Barricade funneling as this can easily backfire having enemies being bashed over the Barricades.

Warning:
Be very careful when using this trap with Barricades, especially with Unique 2 since it's very, very easy to throw enemies over them and ruin your own trap setup if you're not aware of how far it can throw enemies around.

Crowd control traps work great especially against very heavy enemies to let the Haymaker do as much damage as possible against them.

⠀⤷ Traps {Ceiling} [Part 3]

Traps covered in this section:

Shock Zapper
Snow Cannon
Swinging Mace

________________________________________________________________

Shock Zapper:

Cost: 800
Damage Type: Lightning

Skulls to buy: 7
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 6, 7
Unique: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 100 enemies.
Unique 1: Stun enemies.
Unique 2: Enemies killed by the trap explode dealing damage to enemies around it.

In sufficient numbers the Shock Zapper is surprisingly good at crowd control.

The Shock Zapper is a trap that can deal Lightning damage to enemies and is a good choice against the very annoying Armored Ogre (among other heavy threats) who is a common sight in later maps in Rift Lord difficulty. Its 800 coin price is the same of Brimstone and it has some similarities to it like having charges, a certain number of attacks (5, 6 and 7 with each upgraded level), before needing to reload.

The Shock Zapper is a great trap to use to catch some pesky Runner if you set it near the end, or at the start, of your trap course, but keep in mind it has limited charges and takes a small while to recharge, pretty much like the Brimstone trap. And while we're making comparisons, after the Shock Zapper depletes its charges it will need to "reload" and once it's back up it will have its charges to fire several times again.

One of the peculiarity of this trap is that once it starts attacking an enemy it will lock-on said enemy and will bombard it with lightning until it either dies or runs out of charges. Keep in mind that it needs time to recharge, so if it kills something and another enemy gets in its range the Shock Zapper will fire its remaining charges, but if its left cooling down it will eventually recharge itself completely.

Unique 1 is a good option to keep a few enemies in check and in larger numbers is pretty effective at crowd control, especially when it comes to very heavy enemies like Ogres, Elementals and Trolls.

Unique 2 goes well for crowd controls, the Shock Zapper hits decently hard and enemies like Heavy Orcs, Ogres and Trolls can be finished off by it especially if you have other traps in your killzone.

Shock Zappers, like Brimstone, is one of the few traps that can hit fast moving enemies like Runners, Earthlings and Gnolls with perfect accuracy.

Shock Zappers are surprisingly good to kill pesky flyers (except Shockbats).
________________________________________________________________

Snow Cannon:

Cost: 1000
Damage Type: Physical | Acid (with Unique 2)

Skulls to upgrade: 3, 5, 7
Unique: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Freeze 75 enemies.
Unique 1: Converts trap into Acid damage.
Unique 2: Reduced cooldown.

Snow Cannons have a wide arc of range, but watch out for walls and other obstacles that may obstruct it lowering its effectiveness.

Snow Cannons are interesting traps that douse everything that goes in front of it in Ice damage over a wide arc once it's activated. Its vertical height trigger is massive, on par with the Auto Ballista, which is not something that's noticeable right away. The price of this trap is fairly high at 1000 coins.

Positioning is more important to this trap more than most since if you set it too close to walls, even small parts of the ceiling can greatly disrupt the effectiveness of this trap if you're not careful.

The damage from the Snow Cannon is pretty modest and even against vulnerable targets like Fire Fiends it won't do much, their purpose is mostly to act as crowd control to keep enemies frozen for your other traps do finish them off.

Unique 1 turns this trap into an Acid spewing cannon that will apply the Melt debuff for 5 seconds on enemies that are hit.

Unique 2 is simple enough: reduced cooldown to make this trap activate more often.

"Bath time children!" - The Sorceress in her youth.

Snow Cannons have a VERY long activation range.
________________________________________________________________

Swinging Mace:

Cost: 1500
Damage Type: Physical | Fire (with Unique 2)

Skulls to upgrade: 5, 7, 9
Unique: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 75 enemies.
Unique 1: Lowers cooldown of trap.
Unique 2: Converts trap into Fire damage.

The Fire Swinging Mace in action.

The Swinging Mace is a large trap, the largest of the game, having a size of 6x2, basically three regular ceiling traps side-by-side. As its name indicates it will swing back and forth hitting whatever is unfortunate enough to get in its path.

There are some precautions to note with this big toy, though. The mace has a fairly long delay between each swing so you might need something to keep the enemies below it for this trap to be effective. You can set it in Barricade funneling as well, but be careful as the mace can inadvertently throw enemies further into from your killzone, maybe even past it.

This trap shares some similarities with Rip Saws in which that it can be set in horizontal or vertical orientations. Both placements can be good depending on what you're planning on doing with them. But keep in mind that, in horizontal orientation, the swinging mace doesn't over wall-to-wall and enemies walking close to the walls, far from the center, have more chances to walk past the trap.

Unique 1 lowers the cooldown of this trap making the mace swing slightly faster.

Unique 2 gives the Swinging Mace the Fire element which is good when dealing with bigger crowds of Heavy Orcs and will deal at least passable damage against Ogres and Trolls as well.

⠀➥ Traps [Drastic Steps DLC]

Traps covered in this section:

Ceiling Laser
Saw Blade Launcher

________________________________________________________________

Ceiling Laser:

Cost: 1000, 950, 900, 850
Damage Type: Lightning | Fire (with Unique 2)

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Trap must deal 5000 damage.
Unique 1: Adds 2 additional lasers.
Unique 2: Trap now deals Fire damage instead of Lightning.

Ceiling Laser's damage is modest, so it requires a lot of them to be set, or good setups with Tar and Barricades so it can deal a lot of damage.

The Ceiling Laser a trap that's constantly active with the default trap having three laser lines dealing damage to whatever tries to go under it. However the caveat is that its damage output is passable at best and you need many of them or a good setup so they can deal good damage against bigger foes.

Placement is crucial to get the most of this trap. You can rotate and create different patterns with it to suit your needs; placing it in horizontal orientation is ideal for long hallways, while a vertical placement will be great for Barricade funneling, or narrow corridors.

Unique 1 will add two more lasers filling the two gaps between the normal trap and is very good to create hallways full of these things, or if you simply want to fry anything going under it as much as possible.

Unique 2 works well with Tar and the unique to increase the fire damage dealt to enemies in it. It will still hold only 3 laser beams, though. You'd do well to always remember that there are no shortage of enemies immune to fire damage (Fire Fiend and Fire Elementals) in late game maps.

Tip:
The Ceiling Laser can be particularly useful to pry shield off Orcs hands in Rift Lord, and/or explode Sappers or help fry pesky Runners, when used in conjunction with Tar right by the doors they spawn from.

Fire Ceiling Lasers are often used with Barricade funneling and Tar to maximize its destructive potential.

Lasers are great additions to use when fighting with melee weapons as well.
________________________________________________________________

Saw Blade Launcher:

Cost: 700
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Trap must kill 75 enemies.
Unique 1: Saw projectiles Bleeds enemies hit.
Unique 2: Saw projectiles explode on destruction.

Saw Blade Launchers in vertical orientation are powerful traps in enclosed spaces. Make sure to space them properly for maximum efficiency. Having something to stall enemies will greatly increase the potency of this trap as well.

The Saw Blade Launcher is an interesting trap that will launch enemy piercing projectiles that will bounce on walls and Barricades. It's also a small trap around the same size of the Window of Butterflies (2x1) instead of the usual 2x2 trap size.

This is a very odd trap that needs some attention to placement in order to be really useful. One of the best ways to utilize this trap is by placing it in tight corridors where the saw blades will bounce around the same place dealing some grievous damage to enemies.

Tip:
The range preview of this trap is one of the more important ones out of all traps in the game. It will show where the projectiles will bounce at and help you judge whether that wall is a good place to use it or not.

Alternatively you can place it as close as possible to the ground in a way so it will bounce off your Barricades dealing as much damage as possible while it travels. An unexpected benefit of doing this is that, if the saw blade doesn't fly off the map, the projectile of this trap will most likely bounce everywhere hitting enemies far beyond your killzone.

One last note is that due to its different size you can place it close to the ground and them set something like an Arrow Wall and they'll still fire and hit common enemies like Orcs, however it will not affect small pests like Runners and Elementlings.

Each unique is focused on adding more destructive power to this trap, so you might just pick what fancies you the most.

Saw Blades will bounce off Barricades and walls. You can make enemies snake around Barricades or set them at the end of your Barricade setup to get the most out of this trap.

Long, low ceiling, hallways are also good spots for vertically oriented Saw Blade Launchers.

⠀⤷ Trap [Cold as Eyes DLC]

Trap covered in this section:

Molten Gold

________________________________________________________________

Molten Gold:

Cost: 500
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: None. Must have Cold as Eyes DLC.
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 5, 5
Unique: 5 — 5

Condition to unlock Uniques: Spawn 100 coins by killing enemies affected by the trap.
Unique 1: Chance for enemies to drop potions.
Unique 2: Enemies can drop bigger coins.

Molten Gold in action. Notice the bigger coin (worth 50 money).

Molten Gold is the Coinforge's ceiling cousin and it functions like the old trap by giving you a (relatively high) chance of spawning small coins worth 25 moneys from enemies killed while they're affected by the trap's effect.

The Molten Gold also deals a bit of damage, on its own this damage is very low and this trap shouldn't be used to do the heavy lifting for you. Try mixing it with other ceiling traps like Dart Spitters or wall traps to hasten the kill and profit even more from Orc killing.

One of the advantages of this trap is that it will trigger even when set in very high ceilings, so you can put it in places where traps like Shock Zappers, Haymakers or Ceiling Pounders wouldn't normally work.

Unique 1 gives the enemies affected by Molten Gold also a chance to drop potions, but as far as I've tested the chance is still rather low.

Unique 2 focus even more on the chance of earning more money from killing enemies affected by this trap's effect. The big coins are worth 50 moneys instead of 25 from the smaller, more common coins spawned by Molten Gold. The big coins spawn is decent, so this is a very nice upgrade.

Molten Gold boasts a very high height activation range as well.

📒 War Machines {War Scenarios Only}

About War Machines:

War Scenarios features much bigger enemy count for you to deal with, but in these maps you have access to special traps: the War Machines.

War Machines are basically huge traps that act as bigger and meaner versions of the Traps you know. They can be only used outdoors (with one exception) in War Scenario maps.

Keep in mind that even though they are big, powerful and very destructive, these types of Traps are not meant to kill everything, but are here to thin out the major bulk of the enemy force, so your regular traps can clean up whatever's left.

Of course, War Machines are not mandatory and if you want to challenge your wits you can go without them in any of the War Scenario maps.

For big problems we got big solutions.

Part 1:

Bank of Archers

Bowling Boulder

Giant Flip Trap

Giant Killer Beehive Tree

Part 2:

Snow Blower

Tornado in a Box

War Outpost

Mountable:

Mega Boom Barrel Launcher

Rapid Fire Ballista

Drastic Steps DLC:

Knight

Priestess

OVERALL TABLE:

Coins needed to build during maps:

Bank of Archers

Floor (Guardian)

Physical

Fire (with Unique 1)

Game progression

8 — 8

2750

Bowling Boulder

Wall

Physical

Game progression

7 — 7

1800

Giant Flip Trap

Floor

None

Game progression

8 — 8

1200

Giant Killer Beehive Tree

Floor

Physical

7 — 7

2200, 1850 (with Unique 1)

Snow Blower

Floor

Game progression

6 — 6

1000

Tornado in a Box

Floor

Physical

7 — 7

2400

War Outpost

Floor

None

Game progression

6 — 6

1200
850 (with Unique 1)

Mega Boom Barrel Launcher

Floor
(Mountable)

Physical

Game progression

8 — 8

3200

Rapid Fire Ballista

Floor
(Mountable)

Physical

6 — 6

2800

Knight

Floor
(Guardian)

Physical + Lightning (ability)

Drastic Steps DLC + 8

8 — 8

4200

Priestess

Floor
(Guardian)

Arcane

Drastic Steps DLC + 7

8 — 8

3400

How to unlock Unique upgrades:

Condition to Unlock Uniques:

Bank of Archers

Floor (Guardian)

Deal 5000 damage.

Bowling Boulder

Floor

Deal 10,000 damage.

Giant Flip Trap

Floor

Throw 500 enemies.

Giant Killer Beehive Tree

Floor

Confuse 500 damage.

Snow Blower

Floor

Deal 7000 damage.

Tornado in a Box

Floor

Throw 2000 enemies around.

War Outpost

Floor

Place 8 War Outposts.

Mega Boom Barrel Launcher

Floor (Mountable)

Kill 750 enemies

Rapid Fire Ballista

Floor (Mountable)

Deal 10,000 damage.

Knight

Floor (Guardian)

Kill 500 enemies.

Priestess

Floor (Guardian)

Deal 10.000 damage.

⠀⤷ War Machines [Part 1]

War Machines covered in this section:

Bank of Archers
Bowling Boulder
Giant Flip Trap
Giant Killer Beehive Tree

________________________________________________________________

Bank of Archers:

Cost: 2750
Damage Type: Physical | Fire (with Unique 2)

Skulls for Uniques: 8 — 8

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 5000 damage
Unique 1: Archers now deal Fire damage.
Unique 2: Archers fire a secondary volley of arrows.

The Bank of Archers will do some serious damage to large groups of enemies, but are extremely fragile. Never put them anywhere close to where ranged enemies will pass through.

The Bank of Archers is a War Machine that houses different type of archers. Unlike the Archer Guardian the range of the Bank of Archers is colossal, what you'd expect from longbow archers and they can target enemies pretty much from 1/3 across the entire map, maybe even more.

The damage from the Bank of Archers even without upgrades is nothing to scoff at, they can seriously harm enemy forces from very far and while one Bank of Archers may not do much, consider having up to three or even more of them and you'll realize how efficient this War Machine can be.

With that said the Archers stationed in this War Machine are very fragile and one of their worst enemies is the Orc Dynamite Archer that can clear ranks of them with ease. NEVER put the Bank of Archers where enemies can reach them unless you want to waste your coins.

Unique 1 gives the Bank of Archers the Fire element, but always remember that facing Fire Fiends and Fire Elementals are no an uncommon sight in from Mage Tower onward and they are completely immune to fire damage. This works very well against annoying enemies like Trolls and Ogres.

Unique 2 essentially doubles the damage output done by the Bank of Archers. Setting enough of Bank of Archers will cripple the enemy army before they reach your killzone.

The Fire upgrade will do grievous damage against anything that isn't fireproof.
________________________________________________________________

Bowling Boulder:

Cost: 1800
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls for Uniques: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques:
Unique 1: Increases duration of the Bowling Boulder.
Unique 2: The Bowling Boulder explodes after it rolls long enough.

The Bowling Boulder is (as of this writing) the only trap that has to be manually activated. It will roll off and knock down everything in its path no matter the size and weight of the enemy.

It can be a little tricky to set and might take some practice, but you can roll them off as soon as you set them to test them and see where they'll travel. Do keep in mind that any obstacle, even ones set by you such as the Giant Killer Beehive Tree will affect its trajectory.

This War Machine resets pretty fast as well and should be set where you know you'll be staying and fighting the enemies.

Bowling Boulders can be tough to set, but they reset fast and do decent damage.
________________________________________________________________

Giant Flip Trap:

Cost: 1200
Damage Type: None

Skulls for Uniques: 8 — 8

Condition to unlock Uniques:
Unique 1: Lowered cooldown.
Unique 2: This War Machine can be placed inside buildings.

Giant Flip Traps are good for thinning out the small trash. Bigger enemies will be only tripped by it, though.

The Giant Flip Trap is exactly what it means: a very big Flip Trap that will throw lots of enemies away and is one of the few physics trap that can affect very heavy enemies like Ogres, Trolls and Elemental Lords.

Being one of the cheaper options for War Machines, this is one of the simplest ways to thin out the massive Orc army coming your way. As long as you point this toy towards a pit it's very likely that any unfortunate Orc that is in range of this War Machine will be thrown to their doom. But since this thing is so huge it's very hard to force Ogres and Trolls walking near edges to do the same thing, but the Giant Flip Trap can still stall them, especially if more than one is lined up.
________________________________________________________________

Giant Killer Beehive Tree:

Cost: 2200 | 1850 (with Unique 1)
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls for Uniques: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques:
Unique 1: Reduced cost.
Unique 2: Confusion lasts longer.

The floor version, bigger and angrier, brother of the Confusion Flower and Window of Butterflies. This War Machine will periodically create beehives and drop them automatically whenever enemies are close and force them walk backwards while dealing some damage.

The beehives will are pretty good in stalling crowds of big enemies.

⠀⤷ War Machines [Part 2]

War Machines covered in this section:

Snow Blower
Tornado in a Box
War Outpost

________________________________________________________________

Snow Blower:

Cost: 1000
Damage Type: Ice | Fire (with Unique 1)

Skulls for Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 7000 damage
Unique 1: Deals Fire damage instead of freezing.
Unique 2: Freeze time is increased.

The Snow Blower works better in numbers and if you have something to stall enemies on it.

Snow Blower is a War Machine that freezes enemies that steps on it for a moderate amount of time (around 8 seconds). It is one of the cheaper War Machines in the game, costing 1000 coins, and you can set plenty of them around.

On its own the Snow Blower isn't much to look at since all it does is freeze enemies and in War Scenarios you hardly have enough time to kill them on your own. However when you combine it with other War Machines (Bank of Archers, Knight, Priestess) this little toy becomes pretty useful.

One of its Unique upgrades turns it into a Fire damage War Machine, however since War Scenarios often bring a lot of Fire Fiend and Fire Elementals, enemies that are completely invulnerable to fire damage, this is hardly a practical choice unless you want to thin out the Orc mob and handle these enemies on your own.

The Snow Blower with fire upgrade.
________________________________________________________________

Tornado in a Box:

Skulls for Uniques: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques:
Unique 1: Tornado also damages enemies.
Unique 2: Tornado will freeze enemies, but will not throw them anymore.

Tornadoes will wipe out the enemy army, but be careful so you don't throw them inside your fort.

The Tornado in a Box is a War Machine that will fling Orcs of all sizes wildly everywhere. The tornado created by it doesn't follow a set path and will usually circle its spawning box, however the tornado cannot traverse your Barricades.

Do keep in mind that, like the vast majority of physic traps, the Tornado in a Box will NOT lift big enemies like Ogres, Trolls and throw them around.

The fact this War Machine is so unruly can be a problem and it won't do much damage in wide open spaces, but if used near pits it will certainly chuck a good number of Orcs to their doom.

The Unique 2 is interesting as it will freeze enemies and can leave them helpless against other War Machines or Traps just like the Snow Blower.

The freezing tornado will leave enemies defenseless against you and other damage sources.
________________________________________________________________

War Outpost:

Skulls for Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques:
Unique 1: Cost reduced to 850 (default: 1200)
Unique 2: Walls are slanted.

The War Outpost is an interesting trap (more of a structure actually) that allows you to build lots of things on it: wall, floor and ceiling traps and create your own little killbox which can be a very powerful strategy provided you can force enemies into it.

There are many strategies and combinations of traps that can be used with it and you can often employ strategies that would be as viable indoors outdoors with the War Outpost.

One of its Uniques changes the walls of the War Outpost at an angle so you can set wall traps instead of ceiling ones, you can place things like Saw Blade Launchers, Window of Butterflies among other traps.

Another utility for the War Outpost is to set other War Machine traps on top of it like the Bank of Archers or the Mega Boom Barrel Launcher.

Two simple applications of the War Outpost: create custom killzones and set a mountable war machine for better range.

⠀⤷ War Machines [Part 3] {Mountables}

War Machines covered in this section:

Mega Boom Barrel Launcher
Rapid Fire Ballista

________________________________________________________________

Mega Boom Barrel Launcher:

Cost: 3200
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls for Uniques: 8 — 8

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 750 enemies.
Unique 1: Increased explosion radius.
Unique 2: Increased range.

The Mega Boom Barrel Launcher is a catapult mountable that throws a powerful explosive projectile that hits a wide area. It's also one of the two mountable options that must be manually used to attack enemies.

While this seems like a very powerful options to fight the massive horde of War Scenarios there are things that you must take note:

The projectile has some considerable travelling time and flies in an arc. It can collide with other objects midway through which will cause it to explode.
The catapult has to reload after every shot, something that takes approximately 4 seconds.
Remember that in Rift Lord every Orc minion will carry a shield which allows them to tank the first hit.

You can launch the projectile with the Mega Boom Barrel Launcher and exit it soon after to attack enemies while it reloads too.

Another thing to note that the Mega Boom Barrel Launcher can be built at the top of the War Outpost to give it a better vantage point to rain fury on enemies.

Tip:
In War Mage difficulty you can use the Mega Boom Barrel Launcher to thin out the horde on their spawn points, however in Rift Lord you should use it at the end of your killboxes where enemies will most likely have lost their shields.
Using it right where your killzone is at can be a little tricky, but it's also a very effective way to get the most out of this War Machine.

Explosion size comparison: without unique (left) and with it (right).
________________________________________________________________

Rapid Fire Ballista:

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls for Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 10,000 damage.
Unique 1: Attacks Bleed enemies.
Unique 2: Attacks Stun enemies.

Rapid Fire Ballista is the second mountable War Machine and instead of a slow, big, damage over an area it focuses more on singular targets. Its shots are somewhat inaccurate, but powerful enough to kill anything that isn't an Armored Ogre pretty quickly.

You can use this mountable either to pick off stragglers or soften up heavy enemies for your killzones. In Drastic Steps this is a good option to do heavy damage against Chromatica as well.

Keep in mind the Rapid Fire Ballista has a hard time hitting enemies far away, so try to focus on targets at medium range.

⠀➥ War Machines [Drastic Steps DLC]

War Machines covered in this section:

Knight
Priestess

________________________________________________________________

Knight:

Cost: 4200
Damage Type: Physical | Lightning (ability)

Skulls to buy: 8
Skulls for Uniques: 8 — 8

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 500 enemies.
Unique 1: Increased health.
Unique 2: Reduce Lightning Strike ability cooldown.

Knights fighting for you.

Knight is one of the War Guardians available in War Scenarios. They're fairly sturdy and hit hard enough to handle enemies up to Ogres reliably, but are very expensive.

Due to their ridiculous price, Knights are not meant to be the "main course" of the War Machines and should be placed more to aid other War Machines or traps. Knights do a good job at being support tanks for Priestesses.

Knights will stand guard at the spot where you set them but will attack enemies once they get somewhat close to the spot where they are and will dash to fight them. The Knights have the same ability of the Broadsword, the lightning strike, but unlike the weapon the ability does a lot of damage.

Unlike Guardian Archers, both regular ones and the ones from the Bank of Archers, Knights will not fade if they fall in battle, instead they'll limp back to their stand and rest until they're recovered before jumping back into battle.

A wounded Knight recovering.
________________________________________________________________

Priestess:

Cost: 3400
Damage Type: Arcane

Skulls to buy: 7
Skulls for Uniques: 8 — 8

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 10,000 damage.
Unique 1: Reduce recovery time.
Unique 2: Increase Arcane Rain ability radius.

Priestess' normal attacks.

Priestess is the other War Guardian available only for War Scenarios. Their hire price is more affordable than Knights.

The Priestesses will attack by launching Arcane projectiles at enemies from a good distance and if the enemies get close enough they'll use the Arcane Staff's ability over a large area pulverizing most enemies around them.

This War Guardian is a lot less resilient than the Knight, so be careful, but just like Knights the Priestess will not fade if they fall in battle, the Priestess will go back to the stand where she was hired and will rest until she recovers.

Since the Priestess doesn't need to leap into battle melee you can set her close to your killzone so she helps your traps kill things.

The Priestess' ability at work.

Like Knights they won't fade if they fall in battle, the Priestess will return to the place she was hired to recover.

⚔️ Weapons

Your personal arsenal:

Here there will be a list of weapons available to use in the game. Unlike the previous game all of them are available for all characters at all times-- no weapons exclusive to a single character this time around, thankfully.

The only annoying bit is that you'll need to finish the game once, in any difficulty, in order to be able to swap the default weapons of the regular characters, but other than that, there aren't limitations.

Your choice of weapons is as personal as your choice of traps and there's not a "best weapon" here. You may find out that some weapons work better for you than others with some traps and the other way around, so don't be afraid to test it at your own leisure.

Should I bring more than one weapon?

Honestly? That's your choice.

Personally since I have more of a hands-on approach when dealing with hordes, so I always pick more than one weapon to help me deal with any inconvenience I may come across, but plenty of other players go with a single weapon and are perfectly fine even well into Rift Lord difficulty.

Tip:
It's not wrong or bad to bring a second weapon only for what its secondary brings.
For example: some players like to bring the Stone Staff not because of its normal attack, but because of its area petrifying attack. Likewise, people bring the Blunderbuss with the freezing secondary because they feel it can be more useful than the Ice Amulet.

Happy headhunting!

One of the biggest changes to ranged weapons, with very few exceptions, is that almost all of them are able to get headshots this time around. Headshots deal much higher damage to enemies and are pretty much one of the best ways to get rid of the beefier ones.

A good choice of weapon(s) is as important as a good choice of traps.

Part 1

Blunderbuss

Magic Longbow

Bladestaff

Part 2

Ice Amulet

Fire Bracers

Wind Belt

Part 3

Stone Staff

Dwarven Warhammer

Alchemist Satchel

Part 4

Crossbow

Scepter of Domination

Part 5

Chain Lightning Staff

Elven Shortswords

Drastic Steps DLC

Broadsword

Arcane Staff

Cold as Eyes DLC

Flame Thrower

OVERALL TABLE:

Blunderbuss

Yes

Physical

Yes

Starter

4, 6, 8

8 — 8

Magic Longbow

Yes

Physical

Yes

Starter

4, 6, 8

8 — 8

Bladestaff

Yes

Physical

3, 4, 5

6 — 6

Ice Amulet

Ice

Game progression

3, 6, 9

6 — 6

Flame Bracers

Fire

Game progression

4, 6, 8

8 — 8

Wind Belt

Physical

5, 6, 7

6 — 6

Dwarven Warhammer

Yes

Physical

4, 6, 8

5 — 5

Stone Staff

Yes

Physical

Yes

4, 6, 8

5 — 5

Alchemist Satchel

Acid

5, 6, 7

6 — 6

Crossbow

Yes

Physical

Yes

Game progression

3, 5, 8

8 — 8

Scepter of Domination

Yes

Arcane

Yes

Game progression

3, 5, 8

8 — 8

Chain Lightning Staff

Yes

Lightning

Yes

Game progression

5, 7, 8

8 — 8

Elven Shortswords

Yes

Physical

Game progression

4, 6, 8

6 — 6

Broadsword

Yes

Physical (primary)

Lightning (secondary)

Drastic Steps DLC + 6

5, 6, 7

8 — 8

Arcane Staff

Yes

Arcane

Yes

Drastic Steps DLC + 5

5, 6, 7

7 — 7

Flame Thrower

Yes

Fire

Yes

Cold as Eyes DLC

5, 5, 5

5 — 5

Milestones to unlock Unique upgrades:

Condition to Unlock Uniques:

Blunderbuss

Kill 50 enemies with secondary attack.

Magic Longbow

Headshot 50 enemies.

Bladestaff

Deal 20,000 damage.

Ice Amulet

Freeze 90 enemies.

Flame Bracers

Burn 90 enemies.

Wind Belt

Push 500 enemies.

Stone Staff

Deal 15,000 damage with primary attack.

Alchemist Satchel

Deal 7500 damage.

Dwarven Warhammer

Kill 125 enemies with secondary attack.

Crossbow

Headshot enemies 100 times.

Scepter of Domination

Deal 15,000 damage with primary attack.

Chain Lightning Staff

Kill 50 enemies with secondary attack.

Elven Shortswords

Deal 20,000 damage.

Broadsword

Kill 300 enemies.

Arcane Staff

Deal 20,000 damage.

Flame Thrower

Burn 750 enemies.

⠀⤷ Weapons [Part 1]

Weapons covered in this section:

Blunderbuss
Magic Longbow
Bladestaff

________________________________________________________________

Blunderbuss:

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 8 — 8

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Physical
Can score Headshots?: Yes

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 50 enemies with secondary.
Unique 1: Increases secondary blast radius and damage.
Unique 2: Secondary becomes a freezing bomb. Deals no damage nor knockback.

Left: Primary fire - Right: Secondary bomb

The Blunderbuss is Kelsey's default weapon and is best used at short to medium ranges, it can be fired four times before having to reload. You can hit even enemies far away if you aim well, but keep in mind the damage will be pretty low.

Its primary attack fires a spray of pellets that deals a good amount of damage and is devastating at closer ranges, especially if you aim at the face of enemies. It's powerful enough to kill Light and Medium Orcs in one body shot (no need for headshotting) even through their shields in Rift Lord, and deal with Ogres and Trolls relatively quickly with headshots.

The secondary attack fires an explosive bomb that knock enemies around. It consumes a moderate amount of Mana, so don't be too trigger happy with it.

Unique 1 will increase the damage and size of the secondary attack which makes for a good attack to be used in your killzones. Keep in mind that the damage still won't be anything great , not shaving even half of a Medium Orc's health (without shield) in Rift Lord.

Unique 2 will lob a freezing bomb that stop enemies for 3 seconds, but will deal no damage and no knockback, the blast radius is not very big , so it's not recommended for heavy crowd control. It's good if you're intending to save one slot for crowd control as you can freeze a big target and unload the entire clip of the Blunderbuss in their face.

Tip:
Although the primary fire hits enemies almost instantly it does not have infinite range and after a certain distance it will do nothing to the target even though the game will show the pellets hitting something.
Also for the biggest headshot damage try to keep the circle of the crosshair centralized to the enemy's heads.

Another Tip:
Unique 2 works well if you use with Barricades or with melee weapons too.

The freezing bomb secondary.
________________________________________________________________

Magic Longbow:

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 8 — 8

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Physical
Can score Headshots?: Yes

Condition to unlock Uniques: Headshot 50 enemies.
Unique 1: Primary Bleed enemies.
Unique 2: Secondary fires in a straight line.

Note:
* You can zoom in with this weapon.
* Chargeable secondary attack.
* You may use the primary attack while charging the secondary fire.

Left: Primary fire - Right: Secondary fire (scattershot)

A simple, easy to use and reliable weapon that Egan starts with, it has a decent fire rate, but even when fully upgraded it's rate of fire will be modest at best. This weapon is one of the few that allows you to aim, zoom-in, to get a better aim to hit enemies from farther away.

Its primary attack fires an arrow that deals decent damage and will not lose accuracy. Headshots will pierce enemies.

Its secondary fire is a 3-level charge attack that will fire a horizontal scattershot, you'll fire 3, 4 and 5 arrows with each level charge. You can also charge the secondary attack while firing the primary.

Unique 1 causes enemies to Bleed when hit by the primary fire. This weapon doesn't have a very high fire rate (even when upgraded) to spread it everywhere, but it could used good to finish Orcs with one or two less Headshots and maybe for combo making.

Unique 2 converts the horizontal spread shot into a burst-fire type, straight line, of attack which will fire arrows quickly in a straight path. This can be good if used in a narrow paths, especially those created by Barricades, or against single, tougher targets.

A pointblank secondary does a lot of damage against most targets.
________________________________________________________________

Bladestaff:

Skulls to buy: 4
Skulls to upgrade: 3, 4, 5
Unique 6 — 6

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Physical
Can score Headshots?: No

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 20.000 damage.
Unique 1: Primary attack heals on hit.
Unique 2: Secondary attack knocks enemies farther away.

Left: Regular slash - Right: Secondary shockwave

Bladestaff is a melee weapon that returns once more. It has fairly good range and damage for a melee weapon. However, being a melee weapon means it's very impractical to use against flying enemies from Drastic Steps DLC.

Its primary attack is a good old fashioned slash that deals damage to everything in front of you. It's fairly quick and easy to use compared to other melee weapons.

The secondary attack is a frontal shockwave that will send enemies flying a good height leaving them helpless against your attack. This can help when handling crowds of smaller enemies, you can use it to stall them in front of your traps or merely give yourself an opening to slash away with impunity. Take note that the secondary will not knock down bigger enemies like Ogres or Trolls , though.

Unique 1 is ideal for people wanting to get up close and personal with the Orcs. You won't have to worry as much about having to run to the rift or pray for a Health Potion to drop every time you get mangled while fighting. However the Health stealing isn't massive, so it doesn't mean you can just jump into a thick group of enemies with reckless abandon and expect to live long.

Unique 2 is fairly straightforward, it launches enemies upwards with more force than usual which can be good to give you some breathing room while your traps reset and help you with crowd control.

Tip:
The secondary can also knock heavy weight enemies off their feet, - remember that airborne enemies take double damage - including Gnolls and regular Elementals (not Lords, though), but these enemies won't be launched nearly as high as Orcs or regular Fiends.

The Bladestaff excels in getting rid of small trash quickly. Having something to incapacitate crowds like petrifying or freezing will help even more.

⠀⤷ Weapons [Part 2]

Weapons covered in this section:

Ice Amulet
Flame Bracers
Wind Belt

________________________________________________________________

Ice Amulet:

Skulls to upgrade: 3, 6, 9
Unique 6 — 6

Manaless Primary?: No
Damage Type: Ice
Can score Headshots?: No

Condition to unlock Uniques: Freeze 90 enemies.
Unique 1: Enemies stay frozen for longer.
Unique 2: Secondary also creates an ice aura that damage enemies.

Left: Ice shots - Right: Ice storm.

The Ice Amulet is a fairly simple and straightforward weapon: aim, fire and freeze things. Frozen enemies can't fight back and take more Physical damage-- things to have in mind.

The primary attack fires a number of projectiles, it's one of the more mana consuming weapons, so you can't spam it, they spread in a "V-shape", so the crosshair of this weapon is very misleading at short ranges.

The secondary attack unleashes a freezing blast around the character that will keep enemies frozen for longer than the primary attack. It might be useful to blast it inside your killzone and let your traps finish the mob inside it (or use the Trap Reset Trinket).

The secondary also makes melee weapons in particular become much safer to use in crowds and most melee weapons are good at quickly disposing of Light and Medium weight enemies.

Unique 1 is straight to the point, however it only works for the primary attack, not for the secondary, the area freeze one.

The second Unique creates an aura around you after you blast the attack which can be useful to wear down the Fire Fiend and Fire Elemental types of enemies.

Freeze Time without Unique 1

Freeze Time with Unique 1

* 3 seconds (primary)
* 8 seconds (secondary)

* 4 seconds (primary)
* 8 seconds (secondary)

The Ice aura from the secondary (lasts for 4 seconds).
________________________________________________________________

Flame Bracers:

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 8 — 8

Manaless Primary?: No
Damage Type: Fire
Can score Headshots?: No

Condition to unlock Uniques: Burn 90 enemies.
Unique 1: Increase primary attack damage.
Unique 2: Increases length of secondary and duration.

Left: Primary attack - Right: Flame wall

Flame Bracers is a weapon that lets you deal fire damage to enemies and raise a fire wall in front of you with its secondary. Keep in mind that Fire Fiends and Fire Elementals are completely immune this this weapon and you earn it after they start showing up.

It's primary fire will sling a fire blast at enemies, the damage is pretty good and can be further enhanced with the right Unique. It's a great option to deal with big crowds of Orcs and can be used to target pesky Archers in the middle of them with ease. It's area of effect decent, so you don't need to aim exactly at the enemy, you can aim more or less around where the enemy mob is.

The secondary attack is a great option to roast Orcs and pry shields off their hands in Rift Lord, but beware that it uses a fair chunk of Mana to cast.

Unique 1 is focused on the primary attack of the weapon making it do more damage and is better used against grouped enemies or the big ones.

Unique 2 increases the wall of fire size up to the size of the door the Orcs break through (about 3 regular traps, Tar for example, side-by-side) which is a rather large area.

Tip:
The secondary is also very good to deal with Sappers and Kobold Runners, it's also a good option for a preventive attack against the Orcs before they enter your killzone

Secondary duration without Unique 2

Secondary duration with Unique 2

Secondary size comparison without Unique 2 (right) and with it (left).
________________________________________________________________

Wind Belt:

Skulls to buy: 8
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 8 — 8

Manaless Primary?: No
Damage Type: Physical
Can score Headshots?: No

Condition to unlock Uniques: Push 500 enemies.
Unique 1: Increases push strength.
Unique 2: Secondary explodes enemies thrown.

Left: Wind blast - Right: Holding an enemy with secondary

The Wind Belt is a weapon that blow enemies away in front of your character. It doesn't deal a lot of damage on its own, and it doesn't affect very heavy enemies like Ogres, Trolls or Cyclops mages, however it has some interesting applications.

You can use the Wind Belt's primary attack either to swat enemies into pits or into the gigantic grinders in certain maps, or back to the beginning of your trap course. Another use for it is to single out the small fry from the bigger targets so you can have a clear target or enough room to deal with them.

You can also use the Wind Belt to swat Kobold Sappers and Firelings away to prevent them from exploding on you or your Barricades. Alternatively the Wind Belt can be used to knock enemies down and leave them helpless against melee attacks for a short while.

The secondary attack picks an enemy and allows you to throw it around. Since you get attack by so many of them this has very little utility outside of picking something like a Gnoll and throw them away into a pit.

Tip:
Friendly reminder that airborne enemies take double damage.
Just like the Bladestaff the Wind Belt's primary will also knock down Gnolls and regular Elementals. They won't be blown very far, but they'll be left on the ground enough for your traps to finish them off.

Warning:
Unlike previous title the Wind Belt will throw enemies everywhere, more or less in a "V-shape" pattern, so it's very easy to send enemies above, below or beyond where you expect. Be very careful when using this weapon,

Throwing an enemy with secondary with the explosion Unique.

⠀⤷ Weapons [Part 3]

Weapons covered in this section:

Dwarven Warhammer
Stone Staff
Alchemist Satchel

________________________________________________________________

Dwarven Warhammer:

Skulls to buy: 5
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 5 — 5

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Physical
Can score Headshots?: No

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 125 enemies with secondary.
Unique 1: Take reduced damage when using the secondary attack.
Unique 2: Move faster when using the secondary attack.

Left: Smashing attack - Right: The spinning attack secondary.

A melee weapon that but swings far slower than the Bladestaff or the Elven Shortswords. It requires more finesse and timing to use compared to the Bladestaff also due to the lack of healing on normal hits against enemies.

The secondary attack is a spinning attack that can hit large groups of enemies and will juggle up to heavy weight enemies. It's good to use against large groups of them, but you do have to keep an eye for Ogres and the like and they won't be thrown around and will retaliate.

Unique 1 is useful to keep the pressure against enemies and help you survive your own onslaught and in the likely case you get mauled by enemies retaliating and ranged ones pestering you from afar.

Unique 2 is good if you're intending to blitz through crowds and retreating or repositioning yourself, favoring hit and run tactics.

Personal Warning:
Sadly I can't recommend using this weapon.
The Dwarven Warhammer pales in comparisson to Bladestaff in every aspect . Bladestaff is easier to use, has better crowd control and more reliable damage spread, and oh, it can heal too. It's almost embarrassing to continue the comparisons.

________________________________________________________________

Stone Staff:

Skulls to buy: 8
Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 5 — 5

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Physical
Can score Headshots?: Yes

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 15.000 damage.
Unique 1: Increase secondary range.
Unique 2: Secondary launches after brief delay.

Left: Primary attack - Right: Petrifying secondary

Stone Staff is a simple, but very useful weapon. It fires a projectile at moderate pace that will pierce an enemy and can be very good to pick off shields from Orcs quickly in Rift Lord Mode. It's a very well-rounded weapon that can be good for crowd control and even singling out targets.

The primary fire deals a good amount damage, it's nothing exceptional but with the Stone Staff's decent fire rate it's more than enough to bring regular Ogres and Trolls down quickly.

Be on the watch for really tough ones like Mountain Trolls and Armored Ogres, though, as this weapon doesn't have that big of a damage to quickly deal with them without aid of your traps.

The secondary attack will petrify enemies in an area in front of you for approximately 3 seconds. Petrified enemies are easy picking-- either for your attacks or your traps. Do keep in mind this secondary bites a decent amount of Mana. One more thing to add is that the secondary attack excels at killing ranks of flying enemies in Drastic Steps DLC since they tend to fly in tight clusters.

The secondary attack might draw some comparisons with the Ice Amulet's secondary; while the Ice Amulet's secondary has a similar effect, it uses a lot more Mana, but freezes the target for much longer (8 seconds vs 3 seconds from the Stone Staff).

Unlike previous games petrifying doesn't seem to make enemies take less damage this time around.

Unique 1 is self-explanatory, it will petrify enemies in a larger radius. It's excellent for hitting more flying in Drastic Steps and keeping enemies in place for easy headshots or quickly mauling them with melee as well.

Unique 2 will launch enemies upward after petrifying them. What is it good for? Increasing damage against enemies further. Airborne enemies take double damage, so if you have a trap, say like Grinders on top of each other, or have melee weapons handy this Unique can work very well in your favor. Just take note that very heavy enemies (Ogres, Trolls...) will not be affected and this upgrade is going to make getting headshots a nightmare.

Another thing about the Unique 2 is that the small blast that launches enemies upward happens with a bit of a delay, so enemies rushing the area that weren't petrified will be launched upwards as well.

The Stone Staff is by far the best weapon to kill large groups of any type of flying enemy as of this writing.

The Unique 2 in action. You can use melee weapons or use it in your killzones.
________________________________________________________________

Alchemist Satchel:

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 6, 7
Unique 6 — 6

Manaless Primary?: No
Damage Type: Acid
Can score Headshots?: No

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 7500 damage.
Unique 1: Increased explosion radius
Unique 2: Bombs destroyed by attacks deals increased damage

Left: Setting up bombs - Right: Detonating them manually with secondary

The Alchemist Satchel is the only weapon in the game that deals Acid damage which applies the Melt debuff to increase Physical damage. The Melt debuff applied by the Acid damage will last for 5 seconds.

The primary fire will launch the bombs, up to 3 can be set, and the secondary will explode them manually, the secondary will not consume Mana. Take note that it uses a large chunk of Mana even when fully upgraded.

Unique 1 increases the explosion size to affect more enemies.

Unique 2 will cause the bottles created by the primary fire to deal a bit more damage when triggered by damage, be it from your attacks, your traps or even an enemy's.

Personal Warning:
It saddens me to say this, I'll do for this weapon because it's that bad, and specially for a weapon I had high hopes for, but I do not recommend getting the Alchemist Satchel as of now (since August 11th, 2021 patch).
It's far too weak, uses too much mana and lacks the versatility that the Ice Amulet or the Stone Staff have (damage + crowd control), and those weapons also decrease Physical defense of enemies. The Alchemist Satchel is simply hopelessly outclassed in every single aspect-- from damage, to mana consumption, to utility.

This weapon needs some serious buffs to be even remotely useful in Rift Lord.

⠀⤷ Weapons [Part 4]

Weapons covered in this section:

Crossbow
Scepter of Domination

________________________________________________________________

Crossbow:

Skulls to upgrade: 3, 5, 8
Unique 8 — 8

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Physical
Can score Headshots?: Yes

Condition to unlock Uniques: Headshot enemies 100 times.
Unique 1: Headshot kills cause enemies to explode.
Unique 2: Enemies stunned by secondary take more damage.

Note:
* You can zoom in with this weapon. Rate of fire will be reduced while zooming in.

Left: Primary fire - Right: Stunning bolt secondary.

An old acquaintance is back once more, however it has lost the privilege of being the only weapon with the ability to deal Headshots. How does it keep itself on the game then? By being very accurate and being able deal consistent, strong and consecutive Headshots since its crosshair won't spread out completely in a single shot.

Its primary attack is a magic bolt that deals good damage, it's also automatic and fires very fast, much faster than a fully upgraded Magic Longbow, but you can fire around 5~7 bolts, with a fully upgraded Crossbow, give or take, before it loses too much accuracy the bolts start flying everywhere.

Alternatively you can hold the fire button and fire away, the Crossbow bolts do a reasonable damage against the lighter enemies and this is ideal to quickly kill Runners and other pesky stragglers that somehow got through your killzone.

The secondary attack is the familiar Stun Bolt that Stun enemies in a good radius leaving them wide open to any attack. It's rather Mana friendly as long as you don't spam it.

Unique 1 deals a small amount of damage in a small area around the enemy that was killed, but only by Headshots. The damage isn't very impressive, it's more of an utility tool with very few specific uses (more about it in Tips, right below).

Unique 2 is better suited when bringing the Crossbow alone, but keep in mind the damage increase is minimal. Stunned enemies will sway their heads and still jolt when hit, so getting constant headshots can still be annoying.

Tip:
The Headshot Explosion Unique will kill Firelings spawned by Fire Elementals and Fire Lords instantly. If you can intercept them and kill them with headshots this might prevent you from having to deal with the Firelings.

The Headshot Explosion in action.
________________________________________________________________

Scepter of Domination:

Skulls to upgrade: 3, 5, 8
Unique 8 — 8

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Arcane
Can score Headshots?: Yes

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 15.000 damage.
Unique 1: Increases Charm duration (from 6 to 10 seconds).
Unique 2: Increases the blast radius of a fully charged attack

Note:
* Chargeable primary attack.
* You can use the secondary attack while charging the primary attack.
* DOES NOT HAVE AUTOFIRE.

Left: Fully charged blast (without Unique) - Right: An enemy charmed.

Another old friend that returns now with correct spelling. It holds all of its previous abilities with the added benefit of being able to get Headshots as well. The Scepter of Domination also has the benefit of being one of the rare elemental weapons that has manaless primary fire.

The primary attack is a quick, small and fast traveling Arcane bolt that deals passable damage, it doesn't have auto-fire but if you can keep clicking consistently it will tear apart enemies with Headshots. You can also hit several enemies to afflict them with the Arcane debuff which make enemies take more damage from any elemental damage, including other Arcane damage sources.

This weapon also posses a 3-level charge attack with the maximum charge level that will ragdoll light and medium weight enemies which can be good to stall small groups of enemies in your killzone. It's usually good to deal with enemies clustered together or aim directly at the head of a beefier enemy.

The level 2 charge does more or less the same damage as the level 3 . Level 3 adds the area of effect explosion. It does excellent damage against most very heavy enemies with headshots.

Unique 2 will increase the radius of the fully charged primary attack, for those who don't feel like killing their wrists using the rapid fire.

The secondary attack will Charm enemies into fighting for you, this can be very useful either to get a big enemy to act as a temporary distraction. Do keep in mind it uses a fairly large chunk of Mana. Charmed enemies will explode if they die fighting for you, so you can charm a small Kobold Runner and let them get killed on the nearest mob.

Unique 1 will increase the duration of Charm from 6 to about 10 seconds (estimation).

Tips for Charm:
Charmed enemies act as temporary Guardians for you. Charming very heavy enemies is always a good idea since not only they might take a lot damage from other minions chances are they'll kill some of them for you. Another added benefit is that Sappers and Firelings will most likely target them as well.
The enemies that have been Charmed are not immune to damage from you or your traps and if no enemies are around will stand completely still allowing you to pelt their heads with near impunity.

Cygnus in particular is a great user of this weapon as his Feign Death ability will make every enemy stop targeting him and turn to the Charmed enemy.

Charming enemies to fight for you near your killzones is always a good idea.

⠀⤷ Weapons [Part 5]

Weapons covered in this section:

Chain Lightning Staff
Elven Shortswords

________________________________________________________________

Chain Lightning Staff:

Skulls to upgrade: 5, 7, 8
Unique 8 — 8

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Lightning
Can score Headshots?: Yes

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 50 enemies with secondary.
Unique 1: Secondary attack chains to more enemies.
Unique 2: Secondary attack Stun enemies (3 seconds).

Note:
* Chargeable secondary attack.
* You may use the primary attack while charging the secondary fire.

Left: Lightning ball primary - Right: Chain lightning secondary.

A weapon that fires Lightning balls at slow pace, slower than the Magic Longbow and certainly much slower than the Stone Staff or the Crossbow. The projectiles don't align perfectly with the crosshair and they also have more traveling time than usual, so you might need to get used to it before starting to deal consistent Headshots with this weapon.

Its primary attack is a basic Lightning bolt that will hit enemies for a good amount of damage a bit more than usual to (try) compensate for its slow attack. A good reminder is that most heavy enemies take extra damage from Lightning and less from Physical, which other weapons have.

The secondary attack will charge a Chain Lightning attack, the more charged the more enemies it will jump to dealing a decent amount of damage against a certain number of enemies - from 2, 3 and 4 at default, to 4, 5 and 6 with Unique 1. One thing to note is that you can charge the secondary attack while firing the primary attack.

Do keep in mind that the secondary attack uses a fair bit of mana and it's pretty weak . It won't kill even Light Orcs in one hit in Rift Lord and it's mostly to quickly take out heaps of Kobolds and pests the primary fire has no hope of dealing with.

Each Unique upgrade can be useful, it depends more on your playstyle more than anything else. If you're looking to deal more damage to groups of Orcs, go for the first Unique, the other Unique is good to stall enemies inside your killbox, usually the heavier ones.

The chain lighting secondary has a long range to chain.
________________________________________________________________

Elven Shortswords:

Skulls to upgrade: 4, 6, 8
Unique 6 — 6

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Physical
Can score Headshots?: No

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 20.000 damage.
Unique 1: Increases the primary attack's speed
Unique 2: Secondary attack causes Bleeding

Left: Primary attack - Right: Fully charged projectile secondary.

This is a very fast melee weapon and can cut through a bunch of light armored enemies in a blink of an eye, however its range is shorter than the Bladestaff.

Its primary attack consist of quick slashes, they're fast enough to deal with all of the lighter enemies up to Medium Orcs/Fire Fiends, but it still pales when fighting tougher enemies like Ogres.

The secondary attack is a 3-level charge twin slash sword beam that will pierce enemies, however even fully charged this move deals low damage and is mostly here as a last resort to kill Sappers or finish off a far away (and wounded) enemy since its damage is severely lacking.

Also, keep in mind the secondary has a bad tendency to get caught in your own traps or the level geometry if you attempt to use it too close to them.

Unique 1 will increase the attack speed of this weapon, this is a very strong upgrade that basically increases not only the amount of damage this weapon does, but it also helps in stunlocking most of the lighter foes preventing them from retaliating.

Unique 2 adds Bleed to the secondary, but other than using it for combos there isn't much use for this upgrade. The damage from the secondary attack, even when fully charged, is very low and uses a lot of Mana which would be best spent on anything else.

Tips:
The Elven Shortswords are best used in conjunction with other weapons like the Stone Staff, Wind Belt, Blunderbuss Freezing Bomb or the Ice Amulet to incapacitate foes and let you slice them without the risk of getting mauled back to the rift.
Bringing the Healing Trinket is also a good idea since chances are you'll get hit a lot when fighting with this weapon.

⠀➥ Weapons [Drastic Steps DLC]

Weapons covered in this section:

Broadsword
Arcane Staff

________________________________________________________________

Broadsword:

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 6, 7
Unique 8 — 8

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Physical | Lightning (secondary)
Can score Headshots?: No

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 300 enemies with the weapon.
Unique 1: Primary attack heals on hit.
Unique 2: Adds an additional lightning bolt to secondary.

Left: Normal slash attack - Right: Lightning strike secondary

One more weapon to the melee arsenal and this time it's Bladestaff's bigger, angrier cousin, the Broadsword.

The first primary attack is a sword slash that's slower than the Bladestaff, for this reason its damage, although higher on singular hits is lower when compared to the Bladestaff's faster attack speed. To make things worse the Broadsword has bad range for a melee weapon which makes it hardly a good choice over the other option.

The secondary attack will rain three lightning strikes lined up in front of you causing some Lightning damage to enemies and electrifying them. It's pretty good to hit enemies lined up if you like using Barricades to funnel them, and the damage is decent at max level. You can use secondary to electrify enemies and kill them quickly so they explode dealing damage around them.

Keep in mind that the secondary of this weapon is very inconsistent since the area that projectiles hit is smaller than it looks and I've missed even big enemies like Earth Lords and Ogres with it.

Unique 1 is pretty much self-explanatory, healing on hit, more than the Bladestaff's to compensate this weapon's much slower attack.

Unique 2 is good if you like using its secondary attack and you are generally more careful on melee combat (or carrying the Healing Trinket).

The projectiles are spaced pretty far from each other. It's no wonder they miss even big targets easily.
________________________________________________________________

Arcane Staff:

Skulls to buy: 5
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 6, 7
Unique 7 — 7

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Arcane
Can score Headshots?: Yes

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 20,000 damage with the weapon.
Unique 1: Increased secondary radius.
Unique 2: Reduce Mana cost for secondary.

Left: Arcane bolt primary - Right: Arcane rain secondary.

The Arcane Staff is a weapon that fires fast traveling projectiles at moderate pace, the projectiles are about as fast as any other weapon like the Magic Longbow and the Crossbow, so to hit far away targets you might have to lead them a bit sometimes.

Being an Arcane weapon means it's one more addition to the Arcane damage collection, and that it deals higher damage to pesky things like Armored Ogres and Mountain Trolls as the vast majority of weapons that can score Headshots deal Physical damage, which those enemies are resistant to.

The primary attack is a standard projectile that does pretty good damage against enemies and will debuff them with the Arcane effect (+15% damage from all elements, Arcane itself included). The primary attack is pretty powerful and will down Ogres and Trolls in three headshots in Rift Lord, but is strangely tougher to get headshots compared to other weapons.

The secondary is a shower of projectiles that will blanket the area just around you, it lasts for a decent while, but uses quite a bit of Mana, so you can't spam it like crazy. Bear in mind the secondary is VERY inconsistent (which seems to be a theme around Drastic Steps) and can easily miss any target smaller than an Ogre-- NEVER rely on it to take out Kobolds or Sappers, or any enemy for that matter.

Unique 1 increases the radius, the area the secondary attack affects.

Unique 2 is self-explanatory, but the Mana decrease is minimal, almost irrelevant, but at least it's something, I suppose.

⠀⤷ Weapon [Cold as Eyes DLC]

Weapon covered in this section:

Flame Thrower

________________________________________________________________

Flame Thrower:

Skulls to buy: None. Must have Cold as Eyes DLC.
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 5, 5
Unique 5 — 5

Manaless Primary?: Yes
Damage Type: Fire
Can score Headshots?: Yes

Condition to unlock Uniques: Burn 750 enemies.
Unique 1: Increases burn duration.
Unique 2: Secondary takes less time to reach full power.

Left: Primary fire - Right: Stream of fire (fully powered)

Flame Thrower is the sole weapon from the Cold as Eyes DLC and is one of the few elemental weapons that can score headshots on enemies also having a manaless primary attack. Needless to say that being a fire damage weapon this toy is useless against the Fire Fiend family and Hellbats from Drastic Steps (which thankfully are absent in Cold as Eyes maps).

Its primary functions as an automatic weapon that shoots small fire balls that will ignite enemies dealing extra damage over time. The rate of fire is pretty good and the damage is good for a manaless primary attack, you can either use it to set a certain enemy on fire from a distance or just kill that pesky Ogre or Troll quickly since it this weapon doesn't do Physical damage which they resist.

The secondary is what a good old-fashioned flamethrower should do: roast things with a constant jet, of short-ranged stream of fire. One of the more interesting aspects of the secondary is that it will eventually spew an even more potent, hotter, fire stream if you keep using it which you'll notice by its coloring getting a shade of blue-- once it gets to this point the weapon will become stronger until you let go of the trigger or run out of mana (interestingly symbolized by the fuel tank).

The mana consumption of the secondary, when fully upgraded, is decent for the damage and utility. It won't drain your mana instantly, but if you want to use the fully powered secondary make sure to have a decent mana reserve.

Unique 1 increases the burn duration caused by any attack from this weapon. Good if you want to "spread the joy" by pelting enemies with the primary or running around with the secondary torching everything like an arsonist.

Unique 2 focuses more on the power up the secondary gets if you keep using it. This upgrade can be pretty good if you're intending to fight enemies up close.

💍 Trinkets

Introduction to Trinkets:

Trinkets are optional, complimentary equipment that take up a slot in your loadout. Most of them are there to help you in a certain gameplay style: either trapping or fighting. If you're feeling like you can pick more than one to complement both styles. The word of rule here is that Trinkets are not mandatory to win . They are here to make your life easier by enhancing your abilities.

The best part of Trinkets is that activating their abilities require no Mana at all, so you don't have to concerned about blasting one of your best attacks and be worried about not having enough for your Trinket.

Make sure to remember that all trinkets have considerable cooldown, some more than others and in most cases you can only blast them once per wave, some might take even more than one wave to fully cooldown.

"Do I need to have the trinket selected to get its passive bonus?"

No. As long as the trinket is in your loadout bar you'll get the passive bonuses. However you need to select and use it for the active effect to take place, no trinket will ever automatically use the active effect on its own.

"Can I bring more than one trinket?"

Yes, you can. I often go with 2 or even 3 trinkets out in the field due to my playstyle, but if you ever feel you have a vacant slot, and not enough money for traps, consider picking up a trinket for the upcoming battle.

"Does my trinket affect my co-op partner?"

The active effect does. The passive effect doesn't.

For example: the Healing Trinket's health regeneration will not affect your partner, but the active effect, the healing, will. Likewise the Mana Rage Trinket will only increase your mana pool, but the active effect will grant Mana Rage for both of you.

A strange exception for one Unique upgrade is from the Trap Reset Trinket-- the Trap Reset Trinket with Barricade healing will only heal the Barricades you, the trinket owner, placed, but not your partner's. However it will reset all of your partner's traps upon use.

Trinkets are optional, but a good choice of trinket(s) can make a world of difference.

OVERALL TABLE:

Skulls for Special upgrade:

Healing Trinket

Short (1 minute)

Game progression

4 — 4

Mana Rage Trinket

Very Long (3 minutes)

Game progression

8 — 8

Trap Reset Trinket

Long (2 minutes)

8 — 8

Jar of Ghosts

Very Short (45 seconds)

8 — 8

Empty Rift Trinket

Very Long (3 minutes)

8 — 8

Freedom Trinket

Very Short (30 seconds)

8 — 8

Ring of Storms

Very Short (40 seconds)

7 — 7

Cyclopean Gaze

Extremely Short (15 or 10 seconds)

None. Must have Cold as Eyes DLC.

7 — 7

How to unlock Unique upgrades:

Condition to Unlock Uniques:

Healing Trinket

Use the trinket 9 times.

Mana Rage Trinket

Use the trinket 5 times.

Trap Reset Trinket

Use the trinket 12 times.

Jar of Ghosts

Scare 100 enemies.

Empty Rift Trinket

Use the trinket 9 times.

Freedom Trinket

Use the trinket 15 times.

Ring of Storms

Kill 100 enemies.

Cyclopean Gaze

Turn 75 enemies into stone.

⠀⤷ Trinkets [Part 1]

Weapons covered in this section:

Healing Trinket
Mana Rage Trinket
Trap Reset Trinket

________________________________________________________________

Healing Trinket:

Skulls to Unique: 4 — 4
Special: 4

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Activate Trinket 9 times.
Unique 1: Increases passive health regeneration.
Unique 2: Increases active health restoration.
Special: Increases character's max Health (+40).

Cooldown: Short. 1 minute.

Left: Healing Trinket equipped - Right: Healing activated

The Healing Trinket is an interesting piece of equipment that will allow you to remain in the front lines fighting longer without having to risk getting kicked back to the rift - either by falling back or just falling plain dead.

It gives the one equipped with it a passive Health regen that can be increased through one of its Unique upgrades. It also synergies well with Cygnus' ability, Feign Death, to regenerate Health faster, and with the Bladestaff's Health stealing Unique as well. It goes without saying that this trinket is extremely useful if you're planning to use melee weapons.

With its another Unique you'll restore practically all Health from you and your partner which is nice, but be mindful of the trinket's cooldown.

Tip:
Trinket isn't as superfluous as it was before especially since common enemies like Orcs Archers are way more aggressive this time around this and a lot of maps have a strict Par Time that forces you to build away from the rift-- which in turn makes death respawning or even falling back a risky tactic.

________________________________________________________________

Mana Rage Trinket:

Skulls for Unique: 8 — 8
Special: 5

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Use the trinket 5 times.
Unique 1: Increases character's max Mana.
Unique 2: Increases Mana rage duration (8 to 12 seconds).
Special: First spell after using the trinket will cost zero Mana.

Cooldown: Very Long. 3 minutes.

Left: Mana Rage Trinket equipped - Right: Mana Rage activated.

The Mana Rage Trinket is one of the most useful Trinkets in the game by the simple fact it can give you more Mana - which lets you use secondary attacks or elemental attacks more often.

Using the trinket gives you virtually infinite Mana for a small period of time (roughly 8 seconds, or 12 with the right upgrade) through fast Mana regeneration, so you can go all out with your Mana consuming moves for a while. You can use the Mana Rage on early waves to give you a strong initiative and handle enemies while your trap setup is precarious.

The max Mana increase Unique increases Mana to a point even a Mana Potion dropped by enemies won't fully restore all of it.

Tip:
Keep in mind that this trinket does not increase the rate your Mana recovers , so this trinket may give the illusion that your mana is regenerating slower. You still have to watch out not to spend all your Mana all at once.

Another Tip:
Try to hold back a bit when the Mana Rage is about to end, this way you'll have a decent Mana pool and avoid unnecessary troubles should you need more Mana for any heavy threat that may have lived through your rampage.

________________________________________________________________

Trap Reset Trinket:

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls to Unique: 8 — 8
Special: 6

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Use trinket 12 times.
Unique 1: Traps passively reset faster.
Unique 2: Heals Barricades when activated.
Special: Lowers trinket cooldown (1.50 minutes)

Cooldown: Long. 2 minutes.

Trap Reset Trinket is all about one of the core mechanics of the game and it should be no surprise it's very, very useful and can be extremely powerful if used correctly at the proper time.

This trinket passively lowers the time your traps take to reset and one of its Uniques further increases this trait. Traps reset and firing faster means more kills, but it won't be anything too ridiculous like Arrow Walls firing every 3 seconds.

Unique 1 is also good for regular maps and matches, most of times you can protect your Barricades by placing decoys to prevent them from being broken by Sappers or Firelings.

Unique 2 helps a lot preserving Barricades against Kobold Sappers and Firelings if you don't let them blow the Barricades completely, it's also good in case you make enemies accidentally hit the Barricades or if the enemies decide to glitch out and start hitting it out of nowhere.

Additionally, the Unique 2 is a good option for Endless matches too, since you'll get less money as Endless rages on and replacing damaged or destroyed Barricades can become a very costly problem.

Finding the most opportune moments to use this trinket can help clear waves much quicker or turn the tide of a losing fight.

⠀⤷ Trinkets [Part 2]

Trinkets in this part:

Jar of Ghosts
Empty Rift Trinket

________________________________________________________________

Jar of Ghosts

Skulls to buy: 5
Skulls to Unique: 8 — 8
Special: 5

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Scare 100 enemies with active or passive.
Unique 1: Scare enemies around you when you get attacked.
Unique 2: Increases duration of active effect (from 10 to 15 seconds).
Special: Increases Trinket's counterattack duration.

Cooldown: Very Short. 45 seconds.

The active effect. Best used with Barricade funneling.

The Jar of Ghosts is a very nice trinket. The active effect can also save your skin if something goes wrong and can help you turn the tide of a losing battle if used correctly.

It's one of the trinkets I recommend bringing if you ever think you have a free slot available as it has be helpful in almost any situation or map, especially during early waves when things are much more prone to get out of hand.

Its active effect will create a spectral image that will spook enemies and make them walk back to their spawn point for a short while, this will usually create a cluster of enemies perfect for anything that hits a large group, like a Trap Reset Trinket activation. The Unique 1 increases the duration of the active effect.

Tip:
The fear caused by the Jar of Ghosts is more useful than merely halting the progress of enemies; it will completely stop them from attacking you as well, which is very useful when getting attacked by Orc Archers, Ogres and Gnolls.
The Unique 1 focus on this aspect and it's perfect to go along with life stealing weapons, or medium range combat, as you might get hit a lot, especially by Orc Archers. Even if they hit you the small area of effect fear will trigger which can give you some breathing room.

"Fearing surrounding enemies" upgrade works very well when you fight using melee weapons.
________________________________________________________________

Empty Rift Trinket

Skulls to buy: 3
Skulls to Unique: 8 — 8
Special: 6

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Use the trinket 9 times.
Unique 1: Increases the number of Rift Points.
Unique 2: Increases the duration of active effect (Rift protection).
Special: First enemy that gets into the rift won't take any points.

Cooldown: Very Long. 3 minutes.

The Empty Rift Trinket is a curious piece of equipment that can be a lifesaver if you use it correctly. Its main function is to prevent you from losing Rift Points and either losing a Perfect Victory or losing altogether in case something goes awry in your trap course, it's particularly useful at early waves where your trap setup might be fragile.

The active effect will grant protection against losing Rift Points and should be used if enemies are about to overwhelm you near the rift-- something that might be very common in early waves, or in case a Sapper or a Fireling broke a Barricade at the worst time possible.

Uniques 1 is particularly focused on increasing the duration of the active effect. But take note that the cooldown of this trinket is massive , about 3 entire minutes, so it might be used once or twice depending on the map you're going for.

Unique 2 is a good option if you're having trouble finishing a map, but it's useless for people aiming for Perfect Victories (or prideful players). It might be useful to let you survive a little longer in Endless matches as well.

Its Special upgrade in particular is nice since everyone who's played this game long enough always went through that infuriating situation where that single lone pesky Runner got past everything and ruined a would-be perfect game. With the Special you can let one of them slip and continue with your life.

Alternatively more daring player can let one big, burly enemy like an Armored Ogre, a Mountain Troll, or an Elemental Lord get away if you feel like he's going to be too much of a hassle to deal with. Keep in mind this is a single-use only for the entire map.

⠀⤷ Trinkets [Part 3]

Trinkets in this part:

Freedom Trinket
Ring of Storms

________________________________________________________________

Freedom Trinket

Skulls to buy: 3
Skulls to Unique: 8 — 8
Special: 6

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Use the trinket 15 times.
Unique 1: Resist all ailments.
Unique 2: Your speed is increased instead of getting stunned.
Special: Partner gets a speed boost when healed from being stunned.

Cooldown: Very Short. 30 seconds.

The Freedom Trinket gives you natural immunity to being stunned by Ogres which is useful if you're going for close combat with melee weapons. Using it will heal the stun from your partner as well.

Its upgrades can give you immunity to all sorts of ailments, more useful in Drastic Steps with ailment slinging flying enemies, or a speed boost instead of being stunned by enemies. It will also grant immunity to being slowed down by Gnoll Hunters as well.
________________________________________________________________

Ring of Storms

Skulls to buy: 6
Skulls to Unique: 7 — 7
Special: 6

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Kill 100 enemies with active effect.
Unique 1: Increase lightning thunders from active effect.
Unique 2: Increase rift lightning thunder from passive.
Special: Increased active time (from 10 to 15 seconds)

Cooldown: Very Short. 40 seconds.

Left: The passive effect in the rift, notice the clouds surrounding it - Right: Lightning cloud from the active effect.

Personal Warning:
This is one of the trinkets I cannot recommend using without its upgrades and getting it to unlock its Uniques can be a bit of a hassle, so I really suggest you do it on Apprentice difficulty, since, honestly speaking, without upgrades this trinket is very underwhelming.

The Ring of Storms is a trinket that will create a small lightning cloud that will rain lightning on enemies for a short period of time in a certain area.

The passive effect of this trinket makes it shoot lightning from the rift, but the lightning will fire very slowly, with a whooping 5~6 second delay between each shot, and even with the right Unique the range isn't very big. The lightning also won't kill anything beyond Runner type of enemies in one shot (especially in Rift Lord difficulty), so don't rely on it to kill most things that could've passed through your killzone.

You can use this trinket to rain lightning on a small group of enemies, but keep in mind the lightning rate of this trinket is modest at best, even with the right Unique, so don't expect it to do the heavy lifting for you.

Tip:
The active effect will hit enemies at random, so more enemies in the area will mean that the damage will be spread between them. If only a few enemies are in the area they'll be hit far more often by the lightning bolts.

The Ring of Storms is a good option to deal with dangerous enemies like Armored Ogres.

⠀⤷ Trinket [Cold as Eyes DLC]

Trinket in this part:

Cyclopean Gaze

________________________________________________________________

Cyclopean Gaze

Skulls to buy: None. Must have Cold as Eyes DLC.
Skulls to Unique: 7 — 7
Special: 10

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Turn 75 enemies into stone with trinket's counterattack passive effect.
Unique 1: Increases the chance of petrifying enemies that attack you.
Unique 2: Lowers trinket's cooldown (10 seconds).
Special: Deactivating trinket's active effect causes a small Physical damage explosion.

Cooldown: Extremely Short. 15 seconds.

The petrifying counterattack triggering. It will happen either when fighting normally or when you're protected by the active effect.

The Cyclopean Gaze is the sole trinket granted by the Cold as Eyes DLC. It's a very weird trinket that functions not unlike the Jar of Ghosts enabling some close range shenanigans since you must get hit to its petrifying effect to trigger.

Keep in mind that only melee enemies will be affected by the trinket's passive counterattack and only one enemy can be affect at a time (unlike the Jar of Ghosts if it has the right Unique upgrade).

The active effect of the Cyclopean Gaze will turn your character into stone and you'll be invincible for the duration of the effect, or until you manually disable it. Having the Special upgrade will cause the character to do a small explosion that does moderate damage to enemies around you, but won't bruise even regular Ogres, so it's mostly there to get rid of small trash in a last ditch attack.

Turning yourself into stone can also be good to get the attention of Sappers or save you from dying if you're in a bad spot. Since the cooldown of this trinket is very short, which can be further shortened with the right Unique, you can use it with much less worry than most trinkets.

The explosion caused by the Special upgrade after deactivating the armor from the trinket.

The active effect can be used to turn yourself into a stalling agent for Barricaded trap setups.

📓 Weapon Loadouts (Builds)

Forewords:

This is a section dedicated to Weapon Loadouts, sets of equipment used to kill Orcs. Combination of weapons I use.

Like I mentioned in the Table of Contents, these are merely suggestions of weapons and trinkets that I like using, and if you feel you can swap something that suits more your tastes, all the better.

Practicality first: Weapon loadouts for Rift Lord.

These are weapon combinations I've used in Rift Lord, they're meant to be strong enough to help you on the ever shaky early waves you might face and on the late ones where the horde is much bigger.

"Loadout in action" videos are there, at the end of each loadout description, in case you need to have an idea of how I put these weapon loadouts to use in Rift Lord difficulty.

Why not recommend traps?

Because it's a very personal choice and there are lots of maps where the same trap setup will either be not nearly as effective as others, or simply not work at all.

"This is useless, I only need one weapon!"

Good for you, buddy.

"But, seriously, why do you use more than one weapon?"

Short answer: Because this just my play style.

Long answer: I like jumping into action and having tools to deal with enemies as much as I enjoy watching my traps shred them to gibs. Also in early waves most of times only your traps will not be enough to kill the vast majority of enemies, so it's always good to be prepared for both small trash and big trash.

Addendum: Like I mentioned in the Weapon section it's perfectly fine if you can deal with all enemies having a single weapon, and no more than that, in your loadout.

Just suggestions to (maybe) try help you decide what weapon(s) might suit your taste better.

💬 Characters: Health and Mana (again)

This again?
Just a little reminder if you want to check how much Health and Mana a character has before trying out a loadout.

The character with more Health are: Vorwick, Kelsey and Max.
The character with more Mana are: Cygnus, Egan and Gabriella.

The health loss from an Armored Ogre's attack in Rift Lord difficulty.
The mana loss was from the Ice Amulet secondary.

Special thanks to the Orcs Must Die! Wiki for this specific information. [orcsmustdie.fandom.com]

⠀⤷ Legacy

Old, but not obsolete.
Above: Physical variant. - Middle: Elemental variant. - Below: The full variant.

Weapons:

1a) Crossbow (Headshot kills explode enemies)
1b) Blunderbuss (Secondary freezes enemies)
1c) Arcane Staff (Reduced mana cost for secondary)
1d) Scepter of Domination (Charm lasts longer)

2) Wind Belt (Primary pushes enemies farther)
3) Ice Amulet (Freezes enemies longer)
4) Flame Bracers (any)

Trinkets:

1) Mana Rage Trinket (Increased max Mana)

Pros:

+ Very flexible build.
+ Deals with crowds light enemies and handles heavy enemies.
+ Wind Belt can stall huge crowds, especially with Tar or other crowd control traps.

Cons:

- Uses many of equipment slots.
- Pretty mana heavy.
- Wind Belt is extremely unreliable in certain maps, like The Basement.

Recommended Heroes:

Personal notes:

A faithful loadout that's being useful to me since the days of Orcs Must Die! 1. This loadout is very versatile and handles nearly every type of enemy without too much trouble.

The primary weapon can be almost anything you'd want (although I sorely miss the mana regen headshot thing), but I'll go on more detail about my preferences soon below.

The Flame Bracer/Wind Belt is the small trash clean up tool. Using either properly without spamming too much can get rid of most enemies up to heavy weight (weight class below Ogres and Trolls) without trouble.

The Ice Amulet is the heavy duty tool here meant to freeze and stall the big threats like Ogres, Trolls and Elemental Lords. Be wary that even its primary attack is pretty mana taxing, so don't spam it-- blast it once and make sure to let the effect wear off before recasting it to freeze the enemy again. Due to its heavy mana cost it shouldn't be the first option to deal with big crowds of enemies either.

Regarding weapons for the primary slot:
The Crossbow is one of my favorite options being pretty powerful at dealing with very heavy enemies and being not bad at killing small mobs as well. Its headshot explosion is extremely situational, but will prevent Fire Elementals/Lords from spawning Firelings if you use it and can kill ranks of flying enemies reliably.
The Blunderbuss is a close second personal favorite mine since it has good crowd control and since you'll be close to enemies to use the Wind Belt it's one of my favored choices in many cases.

The Arcane Staff , or the Scepter of Domination , are good alternatives if you know how to work with them. The elemental balance they offer is nice and it will help you kill most types of very heavy enemies quickly too.

The Chain Lightning Staff can work in this build, but keep in mind its low attack rate makes it a very difficult weapon to use and the build is mana heavy as it is and its secondary is close to worthless with the Flame Bracers together.

Likewise the Magic Longbow damage is subpar compared to the other weapons and its secondary uses too much mana for very little crowd control, so it's one of my less recommended weapons.

Notes when using the Wind Belt:
For early and even late waves there's the Wind Belt to push enemies back and halt the progress of any non-very heavy enemy. It's very easy on your mana so you can easily stall them while your traps do the hard work.
The Wind Belt is a weapon that's difficult to use properly, but remember that airborne enemies take double damage from all sources. You can blast a Wind Belt attack, quickly swap to another weapon, like the Flame Bracers, or back to your primary weapon of choice and attack away.

Another very good thing to know is that the Wind Belt will kill Kobold Runners and Sappers if they are thrown a bit higher and the same goes for Firelings as well.

However don't spam it since the Wind Belt is pretty unruly and can throw enemies on other lanes making you waste time or worse, above your Barricades, making you waste Rift Points.

Loadout in action:

The physical variant. Coastal Hallways is a good map to show how the Wind Belt and the Ice Amulet can help control small and bigger threats at early game.

The elemental variant (with Crossbow). Close Quarters is a map that tends to give a lot of players trouble due to its tough early waves, this build helps them fight off the enemies until you get a stable defense network running proper.

The full variant. Colosseum is a perfect map to put some of the weapon and trap loadouts to test since a little of everything is coming your way here. The Wind Belt in particular is helpful to swat Firelings away from the Barricades saving a lot of money and preventing headaches.

⠀⤷ Spectral Defender

You can tank, you can damage, you can heal, but wait there's more! You can also be a support!

Weapons:

1) Bladestaff (Primary attack heals on hit)
2) Flame Bracers (Primary deals increased damage)

3a) Ice Amulet (Secondary creates a freezing aura that damages enemies)
3b) Stone Staff (any)

Trinkets:

1) Healing Trinket (Faster health regeneration)
2) Jar of Ghosts (Fear counterattack affects surrounding enemies)

Pros:

+ Excellent for tanking and stalling large groups of enemies.
+ Very good for co-op. You can heal your partner and help them by leaving a ghost to stall enemies.
+ Great elemental balance.

Cons:

- Takes a lot of equipment slots. And without one of its trinkets or the other (it must have at least one) this loadout is ineffective.
- Does not kill very heavy threats like Armored Ogres and Mountain Trolls quickly on its own.
- It's a melee centered build.

Not

recommended for Drastic Steps maps.

Recommended Heroes:

Personal notes:

A melee build that may look odd at first, but it deals with big crowds of enemies easily. This also happens to be my favorite loadout to play in most maps, especially in co-op due to how versatile it can be.

The reason are the trinkets and a weapon: the Healing Trinket to increase health and heal up and the Jar of Ghosts to scare groups of enemies. The Bladestaff will keep you healed especially with the Healing Trinket at hand.

Due to the fact you'll be using a melee weapon to do most of the killing, this build works better with characters with high health like Vorwick, Kelsey and Max.

The Jar of Ghosts is more than it seems: the fear effect affecting the groups is excellent both for stalling enemies and for your own survival. This effect will trigger even if a long ranged enemy, like Archers or Cyclops Mages, happened to hit you.

The Flame Bracers are here to help you kill the heavies like Ogres and Trolls faster. Keep in mind Mountain Trolls and Armored Ogres will still take a long time to kill if you don't have the help of your traps.

Different approaches with Cygnus and Vorwick:
Cygnus has the highest Mana of all characters and he can use the Ice Amulet with more freedom to keep big threats in check and blast the Flame Bracers to clear out the crowds of Orcs quickly, the Ice Amulet secondary will also be very helpful against crowds of Fire Fiends. Cygnus however is far more fragile than Vorwick, so you need to be careful around Ogres and Gnolls.
Vorwick on the other hand has the highest Health and can take more punishment than Cygnus so using the Jar of Ghosts and the healing from Bladestaff/Broadsword will be fundamental to keep the crowds under control, the good thing here is that Jar of Ghosts affects both light and heavy enemies. He has the lowest Mana, so you'll need to be more careful with the mana weapons.

Alternatives for the Bladestaff?
Broadsword:
The Broadsword has better health regeneration with its Unique upgrade. It can make you tankier at cost of crowd control and damage. The secondary does good damage but it's still very unreliable since it can even miss massive enemies like Earth Lords.
Elven Shortswords
August 11th, 2021 patch gave this weapon a needed buff through its Unique upgrade increasing its attack speed, making this weapon at least somewhat viable. With it you trade survivability and crowd control for pure attack. It makes this build riskier, but at the same time, stronger.

Dwarven Warhammer?
No. The primary swings too slowly and the damage output is not nearly worthy to deal with crowds. The build is already mana heavy as it is, so you can't use spend it in its secondary, even though it's really good for smaller enemies.

What about Fire Fiends?
The Ice Amulet is here for that. The secondary with freezing aura makes short work of even Heavy Fire Fiends, the only Fire Fiend that can really give you trouble is the occasional Overlord, which you'll most likely have more than enough traps to help you with.

If there are no Fire Fiends or Fire Elementals around you can do just fine without the Ice Amulet, though.

And why should I consider the Stone Staff instead?
The Stone Staff is more Mana friendly if you time its casts and it's also good to hold big enemies in place for your traps. The "launch enemies" secondary will throw enemies up to heavy (not "very heavy") weight airborne and airborne enemies take double damage, it's something to consider as well.

Loadout in action:

Cliffside is another good map to test your crowd control capabilities since Wave 1 is absolutely ridiculous with the amount of Mountain Trolls and whatnot the game throws at you.

⠀⤷ Universalist

Ranger, Warrior and Mage... All rolled up in a single loadout.

Or a mage capable of deal with any type of threat either with Charm, Fire or Stone.

Weapons:

2a) Bladestaff (Primary attack heals on hit)
2b) Flame Bracers (any)

3) Stone Staff (Increased range on secondary) or Ice Amulet (Increased freeze time)

Trinkets:

Choose any at your own discretion.

Pros:

+ Well rounded built, kills a bit of everything reliably.
+ Easy to use and learn.
+ Extremely malleable; you can swap a few things here and there to suit your needs.

Cons:

- Uses plenty of slots for weapons.
- Depending on your selection of weapons this loadout can be pretty mana heavy.

Recommended Heroes:

Personal notes:

A build that's very balanced in terms of crowd control and damage and deals with most types of enemies reliably.

The Crossbow is a weapon that's meant to deal with heavier threats, any ranged weapon can be replaced if you don't like it, be it the Scepter or you can even go without it if the Stone Staff is enough for you.

The Bladestaff is a weapon to aid with early waves, at least in maps that doesn't throw a ton of very heavy enemies from the get go, but it's a weapon that you can easily take out of this loadout if you need an extra slot for a trap or another trinket of your preference.

The Stone Staff is more of an utility weapon for me. The secondary is very useful to keep enemies in place, especially the heavy ones since its range is pretty good and the duration is on par with the Ice Amulet's primary attack.

My opinion about weapons other than the Crossbow:
Scepter of Domination
Great replacement. Excellent accuracy and the Charm secondary always helps. The fully charged primary attack will ragdoll enemies for a few seconds, and in those few seconds you deal double damage against them.
Blunderbuss
Very good as well. It has some light crowd control capability and the secondary isn't too shabby.

Arcane Staff
Does very good damage and kills regular Ogres and Trolls in three headshots which is very good. Be careful with Voidbats in Drastic Steps, however.

Chain Lightning Staff or Magic Longbow
I'll be as blunt and honest as I can here: I feel that these weapons fall short in terms of damage and crowd control compared to the other ones, so not my recommendation. But that's just my opinion. If you're better with them than the other ones, go for it.

Loadout in action:

Using this loadout in Mage Tower without Barricades. Every weapon sees a fair bit of use to handle crowds of smaller enemies and groups of heavier foes.

⠀⤷ Sorcerous Might

Max and Gabby's personal weapons make a powerful combination. Coincidence?

Bladestaff variant.

Weapons:

1a) Blunderbuss (secondary is a freezing bomb)
1b) Bladestaff (Primary attack heals on hit)

2) Scepter of Domination (Charm lasts longer)

Trinkets:

Choose any at your own discretion.

Pros:

+ Good damage potential.
+ Reasonable crowd control potential with Charm.

Cons:

- Blunderbuss variant doesn't kill huge crowds of Orcs quickly without the aid of traps.
- Needs the completion of the game to unlock one of the weapons.

Recommended Heroes:

Personal notes:

This is a deceptively simple and useful loadout. The Blunderbuss, or Bladestaff, and the Scepter of Domination synergies with each other very well.

The primary attack of the Blunderbuss can be used to kill small trash rather quickly and even the heavier ones with the secondary being able to hold them in place. The Scepter's primary on the other hand is far more precise and can pick off enemies at greater distances, but packs quite a punch when half-charged and you can still use the Blunderbuss' secondary to hold enemies in place for either quick shots, or a charged attack as well.

With the Bladestaff you can have as much crowd control as you have with the Blunderbuss against smaller enemies and Gnolls will not pose a threat to you, but you'll lack the freezing attack to deal with very heavy enemies more easily.

The Scepter of Domination can be used to Charm the very heavy enemies like Ogres and Trolls to make them fight for you and create big cluster of enemies for your traps or any other area attack you may carry. Instead of being worried about an Armored Ogre showing up you'll probably be happy instead.

The primary attack, normal or charged, can be used to kill very heavy enemies quickly. Keep in mind that the first charge of the scepter will do the same amount of damage the second level of charge (which adds the area of effect).

Loadout in action:

Blunderbuss variant. Aqueducts has some tough waves early on, so it's good to show how this works until you get your trap course running strong.

Bladestaff variant. Master's Courtyard has some nasty early waves with Fire Fiends, so it's another good map to showcase how this loadout works.

💡 Trap Ideas: Preface

What's this section about?

About giving some of the suggestions of trap combinations I use in a few cases.

Keep in mind these aren't strict combinations and I tend to change them slightly here and there to suit my tastes or depending which weapon loadouts I'm using in certain maps...

Needless to say the Trap Ideas below is just what the word means: ideas. They'll be there just to give you a few hints and maybe something to start and help you create your own killzones. Who knows.

What's the difference between "killzones" and "killboxes"?

None as far as I'm aware. Most people use either to describe their favored location of killing.

Others prefer to define them by size with killzones being bigger than killboxes, but for simplicity's sake I'll refer everything as "killzone" here.

Don't overthink trapping. The art of trapping can be as chaotic as the horde itself and some of the best trap courses people made were by accident after putting a trap in their loadout they didn't think it was going to be that useful.

⠀⤷ Concept: Barricaded

Killzones: Barricade funneling/bottlenecking

This is an extremely popular method of creating killzones and it's also very efficient and can be used in a plethora of ways with many traps.

These are killzones created with Barricades to funnel/bottleneck enemies into a specific spot forcing them to walk a narrow line which in trade makes it much easier to control even large crowds.

The game isn't shy about using Barricades and it's very, very obvious that it's biased towards Barricade-focused killzones rather than open ones, killzones that doesn't utilize them.

The most obvious advantage is the fact Barricades will force enemies into a narrow space which makes traps like Wall Charger, Grinder and Spike Wall work far more efficiently (not even putting your weapons into the equation). Another advantage is that it's much easier to control crowds when funneling them into smaller spaces, for this reason this tactic is a very good option for most War Scenario maps.

But like I mentioned in the initial preface, be very careful around Barricade-breaking enemies like Dynamite Archers, Gnoll Grenediers and even more with Sappers. Any holes in these setups is extremely dangerous-- they will either greatly diminish the effectiveness or outright disable them depending where the hole is made and, sometimes, if not fixed in seconds can be game ending for you.

Some of the traps considered of universal use for any Barricade setup are: Dart Spitter , Window of Butterflies , Confusion Flower and Tar . While almost every trap will work well with Barricades, there are two common types of Barricade setups that can be used which I'll show below: Straight Line and Snaking.

Straight Line:

Keeps enemies as close to walls as possible, simple and efficient. Great for traps like Wall Chargers, Wall Blades, Grinders.

Snaking:

A Barricade setup used to get the most out of traps like Saw Blade Launcher, Arrow Wall, Rip Saw and Deep Freeze.

Pictured examples:

There are many, many ways to make use of a Barricade funneling. Be creative.

⠀⠀⠀⤷ Trap Ideas: Barricaded

Forewords:
Trap Ideas are exactly what they mean: ideas. I'm putting them here just because I've used some of them and they worked for me, but don't take them for granted, they're here just to maybe jumpstart your imagination and help you unleash your destructive creativity.

Ideas here:

Lightning Alley
Shredding Snake

____________________________________________

Lightning Alley:

Main Traps:

Ceiling Laser or Shock Zapper
Ice Dart Spitter
Tar
Window of Butterflies

One of the simpler ideas that make use of the ceiling for Ceiling Lasers (or Shock Zappers) and Ice Dart Spitters and Tar to slow enemies in their range. The simplest setup uses only those four traps and if the place doesn't allow Ceiling Lasers to be set you can use Shock Zappers instead.

Complements for this trap course can be the Arcane Brimstone or Arcane Spike Trap to increase more the elemental damage dealt by the two ceiling traps.

Wall traps are good complements for this setup further and any can be picked as you need them. Fire Wall Arrow, Deep Freeze or Wall Charger are usually good choices, the Wall Charger in particular if you have the right upgrade for it and further increase it's damage potential.

An example of this trap course.

Corners are always great places for most barricaded setups and this one is no exception.

Variant with Saw Blade Launcher.
____________________________________________

Shredding Snake:

Main Traps:

Ice Rip Saw
Tar
Shock Zapper or Ceiling Laser
Ice Dart Spitter
Arcane Window of Butterflies
Fire Arrow Wall or Saw Blade Launcher

The most important thing to do here is to use Barricades to force enemies "snake" around it so you can get the most out of certain traps like Arrow Walls, Saw Blade Launchers and Rip Saws.

Floor traps can be also swapped for Acid Geysers, Spike Traps or Brimstone if you're feeling like it.

While the Rip Saws are fairly powerful they need the aid of crowd control traps to truly shine here, things like Tar, Ice Dart Spitter, Shock Zapper and Window of Butterflies are essential so enemies won't simply speed through it, the Shock Zapper and Arcane Window of Butterflies are good options to catch any pesky Runner or Earthling that can get through the trap course with ease.

An example in a small space with Saw Blade Launchers and Ceiling Lasers.

Another setup with Shock Zappers and Fire Arrow Walls.

A different Barricade setup for this trap course.

⠀⤷ Concept: Open Box / "Barricade-less"

Killzones: Open Box

This is the name I choose for killboxes that don't rely on Barricade funneling to work . Of course having more space means it can be more difficult to control huge crowds earlier, but they (usually) work well enough.

These are ideas that work better when a map already gives a decent place for you to work with your traps, usually when you only need to block one or two sides and force enemies into the right hallway you'll be fortifying.

The biggest advantage in this type of killzone is the fact that you have to worry much less about collateral damage when dealing with Dynamite Archers, Fire Elementals and even Sappers. For the most part you'll use the level layout to create your killzones, so no need to search for good spots to spend coins on Barricades.

Open Box ideas work with Barricades, but they're here because I'm a stubborn player who likes to avoid using Barricade killzones as much as I can.

Traps that are either cheap (Spike Trap, Ceiling Pounder) or that hits larger areas (Arrow Wall, Dart Spitter, Boom Barrel Dispenser, Confusion Flower) are some of the options to consider when building this type of trap course.

However the problems are that wider areas means that it's much easier to get some leakers getting through in the mid of big fights. So make sure to ALWAYS bring either something like Shock Zappers or Brimstone to avoid issues with fast enemies like Kobold Runners, Fire Fiend Runners or Earthlings and Firelings.

An example of an "open box" killzone.

The golden rule for this type of trap course to work is to use the level's layout at its fullest and instead of focusing in a single fortified spot, set as many traps over widespread areas as possible. Always remember to find good places where the traps will do the most destruction as well.

Pictured examples:

Killzones without Barricades can take as many shapes and forms as barricaded ones and they are especially great when you want widespread damage without worrying too much about Dynamite Archers, Sappers or Grenediers ruining your day.

"Killzones without Barricades never work!"

They do work. It takes some getting used to and good use of the level's layout, but good killzones without Barricades gets the job done as well, if not better than Barricaded ones if you know how to set them up:

Left: Close Quarters - Right: Mage Tower . Both done without any Barricades at all.

⠀⠀⠀⤷ Trap Ideas: Open Box / "Barricade-less"

Forewords:
Trap Ideas are exactly what they mean: ideas. I'm putting them here just because I've used some of them and they worked for me, but don't take them for granted, they're here just to maybe jumpstart your imagination and help you unleash your destructive creativity.

Ideas here:

Shock Course
Cold Lift
Boom Barrel Blowout

____________________________________________

Shock Course

Main Traps:

Shock Zapper
Fire Arrow Wall or Deep Freeze
Arcane Brimstone or Rip Saw

This is a simple trap course with good elemental balance and it's deceptively good at handling most types of enemies with efficiency. It's one of my favorite to use in levels that gives hallways that lets you put 3 traps side-by-side.

The Shock Zapper with Stun upgrade is the main trap of this course. In sufficient numbers it can stall a decent amoung of enemies leaving them vulnerable to other traps like Rip Saws, Arrow Walls or anything else of your preference.

The Arcane Brimstone leaves enemies more vulnerable to the other two traps of the trap loadout and it's one of my favorite means to deal with pesky Runners that loves to run past you in the middle of a big fight.

This trap loadout is also very adaptable and I usually trade one or two things in case I go for maps where Fire Fiends show up in large numbers. Since Tar is also ridiculously expensive sometimes I also go with Spike Traps to give some more oomph to this trap course as well.

A simple setup that can hold even an army of Ogres that shows up in Secret Fortress.

Variant with Rip Saws for extra ground damage. Tar is set at the start of the trap course.

A more complex variant with Rip Saws, Confusion Flowers and Guardian Archers.
____________________________________________

Cold Lift

Main Traps:

Gravity Pillar
Ice Dart Spitter

This trap course is focused on the Gravity Pillar to handle small enemies that are affected by physics traps and the Ice Dart Spitter to deal with heavier enemies that won't be stalled by the former trap.

The combination may seem simple, but with things like Confusion Flowers, Arrow Walls, Spike Traps or Brimstone you'll see how effective these two ceiling traps can be.

Ceilings are the best friends of Barricade-less killzones.
____________________________________________

Boom Barrel Blowout

Main Traps:

Boom Barrel Dispenser
Shock Zapper
Tar

A trap course focused on using the Boom Barrel Dispenser to deal with crowds of enemies. Having something like the Ceiling Laser or the Flame Bracers to take the shields from Orcs in Rift Lord helps immensely avoiding them from tanking the first explosion too.

A small but important detail is to set one floor trap so the barrels won't roll too far. Usually a cheap trap like the Spike Trap is good for this as it will also detonate the barrel when something triggers it.

For this trap course to work some serious crowd control is required and you'll often need to use traps for that with my favored choices being Shock Zappers and Tar.

A single floor trap in the right position will make the barrel stop at the central part of most corridors.

An explosive development.

🥇 Hints and Tips: 5 Skulls

What is needed for 5 Skulls?

Getting 5 Skull, aka the Perfect Victory, in all maps demands practice and training.

You need two things here:

1) NOT lose any rift points, which means not allowing any enemy reach the rift, yes that includes even the smallest Kobold.

2) Finishing the map under the required Par Time. This means you have a certain time limit to beat it.

________________________________________________________________

Empty Rift Trinket: A safety net

Technically you shouldn't allow any enemies in the rift to get the 5 Skulls rank and the Perfect Victory.

Why "technically"?

Because there is the Empty Rift Trinket that, with the right upgrade, will let you slip 1 enemy, quite possibly a straggler, a Kobold of Fire Fiend Runner that got through your defenses, or if you're a bit more daring that one Armored Ogre/Mountain Troll/Elemental Lord you let slip on purpose because you didn't want to waste time dealing with it.
________________________________________________________________

Par Time issues:

Finishing the map under the required time isn't difficult on paper, but sometimes it is on practice.

If you're having trouble with Par Time consider building your killzones closer to the enemy spawn points, even right next to it in early waves if needed. Of course if you're playing on Rift Lord difficulty you'll have only 3 seconds to sell things once the last enemy in the wave dies.

👑 Hints and Tips: Rift Lord

"No one is more ready."
If you're reading up until here it means you're interested in more advanced aspects of the game, so I'll leave the more advanced hints and tips before we move on the enemies lists.

What is Rift Lord?

Rift Lord is the highest difficulty available to the normal campaigns of the game, it was formerly known as Nightmare in Orcs Must Die! 1 and 2, but it was renamed in Unchained and remained like that now.

Rift Lord is a far greater challenge presented to players who have mastered the War Mage difficulty and is more than just cranking up enemy numbers and health up. Rift Lord is meant for players who are ready to face more difficult waves of enemies and put their trap setups and combat skills to true test.

Rift Lord is often seen as a game difficulty made only for the hardcore players and usually avoided by some of the less experienced ones, and it's easy too see why people think that way due to how overwhelming the pace can feel compared to War Mage, it will feel like you went from a light jog to sprinting for your dear life the entire match.

However most of the pressure weights you down until you get your brain in gear and adapt to Rift Lord.

Rift Lord is basically how the game tells you that it's done playing around. Everything you faced on War Mage you'll face with a bigger difficulty in Rift Lord.

Here's a little taste of what Rift Lord changes from War Mage difficulty:

Enemies have more Health and hit harder.
Enemies are more numerous.
Rift Points are cut in half.
You only get 3 seconds of pause between waves to sell traps.
There are NO "Go Breaks", pauses where you have to manually start the next wave. That means no recovery in-between waves, and very little time to sell or replace traps.
Modified waves; stronger enemies appear much earlier. Ex: Armored Ogres show up in the first map.
Every Orc (Light, Medium and Heavy) will carry shields that allows them to tank the first hit against them.

________________________________________________________________

Rift Lord, a matter of time (mostly)

The biggest change from War Mage difficulty to Rift Lord is the fact you DO NOT have any "Go Breaks", those where you have to manually initiate the wave, anymore.

You also get only THREE SECONDS of rest between waves, so fixing mistakes and selling traps to replace them from one point to another might be difficult unless you're really quick.

The pace can feel overwhelming at first and will force some habits out of you if you want to play efficiently in it. Getting your brain in gear is also necessary for it since playing in this difficulty as you played on lower difficulties will often get you into trouble.

Keep in mind that the lack of "Go Breaks" also brings some unintended difficulties as Guardians Archers and those from the Bank of Archers will NOT be resurrected at the end of any wave at all, so you'll need to be really careful with them since, unlike the previous game (as of this writing), there is no trinket to revive them.

Tip:
If you really need to sell a bad placed trap, Barricade or just replace something with a better trap you can lure (i.e: kite) the last enemy towards the place you want before finishing it off. This works with every non-passive enemy like Runners.

At first it will be tough, but you'll eventually learn to let one or two enemies alive to sell your traps quickly if you need to.
________________________________________________________________

Be prepared for stronger enemies earlier on

Enemies like Armored Ogres and Gnoll Hunters will show up earlier with the former appearing in the very first map of the game during Rift Lord, so make sure you have something to handle them.
________________________________________________________________

Orcs with shields: Do NOT underestimate them.

Besides being stronger (health and damage wise) than usual, every Orc will carry shields with them in Rift Lord.

The shield Orcs have in Rift Lord allows them to tank the first hit with near impunity, they still can be afflicted by status conditions (burn, freeze, fear), but they will not take damage be it from a single arrow from the Magic Longbow or a massive explosion from the Mega Boom Barrel Launcher.

This isn't usually a problem with weapons with high attack rates, or traps that hit more than once, but for anything else it's a nightmare. Since every Orc will be carrying shields they can make some traps like Brimstone and Shock Zapper much less effective and weapons that require Mana like the Ice Amulet and the Flame Bracers lose effectiveness too.

Tip:
It's not a bad idea to just go out attacking Orcs simply to pry off theirs shields before they reach your killzone.

One Orc with a shield wouldn't be a problem. An army with shields? You can bet it can be.
________________________________________________________________

Tough early waves?

With the increased number of enemies coming at you the Rift Lord difficulty can easily catch you off-guard. So if you're having trouble surviving the first waves try using crowd control tools until you can get your defenses running proper.

Suggestions:
Trinkets: Empty Rift Trinket, Mana Rage Trinket (with the right weapons), Jar of Ghosts.
Weapons: Stone Staff, Wind Belt, Ice Amulet.
________________________________________________________________

Learning and adapting

Learning how to quickly set traps during combat will be one of the earliest lessons Rift Lord will teach you. The other will be selling your traps in the measly 3 second pause each wave gives you.

Setting traps during intense combat can be annoying for some and it's very easy to misplace something or select a trap you didn't mean to set yet.

The latter aspect in particular makes it rather difficult to set traps in one place and then swap to another if you liked doing that to deal with maps with more than one spawn point. It's possible but you'll have to be very fast.

Building during combat can be difficult, but it becomes a necessity in Rift Lord.
________________________________________________________________

Planning somewhat ahead

It's always good to more or less have a plan in mind, but be always ready to improvise because somethings can (and trust me, they might) go wrong in Rift Lord. And due to the ridiculous low time you have to prepare yourself between waves it's always good to know what you're going to do next as you don't have a lot of time to make major changes to your trap course.

💯 Hints and Tips: Scramble Mode

Scramble Mode is an extra game mode unlocked after beating the Mage Tower map (12th level) and it has randomness added to it to spice things up.

What is this "randomness" I'm talking about? The buffs and debuffs. Things that can change wildly how a map normally plays out, and more importantly: how YOU play a map .

Scramble Mode is not to be taken lightly and due to how debuffs work it's extremely recommended that you come here having as many traps and weapons as possible and knowing how to use them since some of the trickiest maps in the game, War Scenarios and Drastic Steps maps included, can show up in the map selection.
_______________________________________________________

A word of advice:

If you're just fresh off War Mage difficulty and want to go straight to Scramble Mode, consider playing Scramble Mode on your own a few times to familiarize yourself with the mode first and learn some of its quirks.

Tiers 4 and 5, the two final maps, will always be in Rift Lord difficulty, the hardest setting. I'll talk more about this soon.

Learning about more than the handful of traps and weapons you've probably used during the regular Campaign before jumping into Scramble Mode helps a lot .

As I just mentioned Scramble Mode can be tougher than Rift Lord at times and jumping into a Scramble Mode co-op without basic knowledge of the game might turn you into a liability more than anything else.
_______________________________________________________

Want to practice before jumping into Scramble?

Rift Lord is a great way to ready yourself for Scramble Mode. Since this difficulty will throw bigger and meaner waves with tougher enemies at you from the get go, it will be a good test to your abilities in handling tough early waves and how your current build and weapon + trap loadout holds out against them.

Tip:
It's important to know that Tiers 4 and 5 will always be in Rift Lord difficulty. Take note of what it changes and be ready for it as going unaware is going to catch new players by surprise and give them a good scare at very least.

Having general knowledge of how to handle unexpected situations happening like one Barricade breaking in the middle of a fight, or one of the re-routing Barricades being destroyed is also very good. Rushing to replace the broken Barricade and jumping back to the fight seamlessly is something that takes practice and demands composure not everyone has, especially under pressure.

Another Tip:
Some debuffs make every regular War Scenario boss appear in every wave . Remember that regular maps are much smaller and have much lowered income compared to the massive sized War Scenarios, so you'll have much less time to deal with them.
The good point is that they're like Mr. Moneybags and will drop a big coin worth 500 moneys upon death on each wave.

Scramble does not care about your feelings. Be unlucky enough and you can get more than one boss showing up to fight you in every wave.

_______________________________________________________

Have a varied arsenal of traps and weapons

Since the game will apply different buffs and debuffs it's also very wise to be comfortable with as many weapons as you can since you do not want to be stuck with a debuffed weapon against buffed enemies. It's also equally good to be ready and very confident in fighting every type of enemy as you can and will inevitably fight them with buffs at some point.

Each time a Scramble Mode map starts you'll have the chance to swap your traps, weapons and trinkets. This is extremely important in case a particularly nasty debuff pops up and goes against the strategy you have in mind.

This is why I recommended back there to know what every trap and every weapon does, especially if you go alone, because it won't be very fun learning how to use a certain trap or weapon you're not familiar with when you have several enemy debuffs stacked against you.
_______________________________________________________

DOUBLE CHECK YOUR UPGRADES!

It's very easy to get careless and go with an upgrade in a certain trap that will make it useless, especially when it comes down to elemental damage. It won't be fun to go with the wrong variant of the trap when every enemy is immune to it.
_______________________________________________________

Whole 100 Rift Points

This is what you have to survive through five maps in Scramble Mode. It may sound like it's a lot and you might even be tempted to think it's way too much and will make the game too easy, but remember that these Rift Points will not regenerate and that there are several debuffs that can very easily trip you up.

One of these debuffs happens to be a heavy penalty on death that deducts 10 Rift Points at once if you die. Combine that with debuffs that makes Gnolls appear in every wave and another debuff that makes your usual weapons and traps weapon weaker and you've got a recipe for disaster if you're not careful.

Another debuff makes every enemy be worth 5 Rift Points, including Gnolls which are normally worth zero points if you force their escape.

Sounds like a lot, but a bad wave can easily eat from 10 to 20 to even whole 50 points...
_______________________________________________________

Co-op Scramble

Co-op requires finer attention and, dare I say, have better synergy and know how each other plays and how much they understand about the game.

Scramble Mode has debuffs that will punish reckless behavior much harder than other normal game modes and it won't be fun to deal with someone who ends up losing a ton of Rift Points right in the first map.

Depending on the set of debuffs you two are stuck with you'll need to cover the weaker angles your partner may not be ready for or vice-versa.

If you have a "boss in every wave" debuff will you go after the boss or will your partner do it, or both of you will do it? Those are things to consider and plan ahead whenever possible.

⠀⠀⠀⤷ About some debuffs

Crowd Control effects:

This is the one that confused me the most at first.

This is one of the nastier debuffs of Scramble; basically crowd control amounts to ANY status effect that would hinder the progress of enemies-- it means that the following status will NOT work:

Stun
Slow
Freeze
Charm
Confusion
Fear
Petrify (Stone)

However keep in mind physic effects WILL work , like the one from Wind Belt, Flip Trap, Push Trap, Gravity Pillar and Giant Flip Trap.

_________________________

How much the price debuffs increase the trap prices?

A specific surface debuff (Floor, Wall or Ceiling) will increase their price by whooping 50% .

The general "All Traps are more expsive" will increase trap price by 25 %. And yes, they do stack .

To counter that the price discount have the same weight; they lower the trap price by 25 and 50% respectively. They also stack if you're lucky enough to get them in a single run.

_________________________

Does "more expensive floor traps" affect Barricades?

No, thankfully it doesn't.

However if a price debuff appears like "All Traps are more expensive" (+25% price) or "Floor Traps are more expensive" (+50%) the price will be increased by 30~50%.

For reference, a fully upgraded Barricade (normal costs: 800 for regular and 1200 for doubles) will cost:

Regular Barricade: 1000 or 1200
Double Barricade: 1500 or 1800

_________________________

Word of advice for "Enemies are immune to [insert element here]":

This also means they will be immune to the status effect respective to the element.

For instance: immunity to Ice means enemies cannot be frozen, immunity to Arcane means they cannot be debuffed, and immunity to Lightning means they cannot be electrified.

_________________________

More enemies in every waves:

The make "every [insert enemy here] appear in every wave" debuff will always cause them to show up all at once and from the same door. This also includes boss enemies if you have that debuff.

Each map has its own specific door to spawn the extra enemies, so once you notice it, keep an eye on that door so you'll be ready for the extra enemies that are coming your way.

Keep in mind that sometimes the last door that opens will be the one that spawn extra enemies, so until that door opens the game will spawn the extra enemies from any other door available.

An example in Coastal Hallways: the extra enemies will always spawn from the leftmost door once it opens at Wave 5. However they'll spawn at first from the central and rightmost door until then.

_________________________

Ranged enemies buff: be VERY careful with Mages and Grenediers...

When the debuff means "Ranged enemies have greatly increased damage" they mean more than just Orc Archers.

In this list enemies like Dynamite Archers , Gnoll Grenediers , Cyclops and Fire Fiend Mages and every flying enemy from Drastic Steps will be included, so be extremely careful when dealing with this debuff. Even more so if you have the "Every Orc deals more damage" because they do stack and it won't be pleasant to see a puny Orc Archer downing you in a single hit.

Another Warning:
If a "more enemies" debuff also has an extra effect, like making Armored Ogres stronger, Mountain Trolls faster or Kobold Sappers stronger, it will also affect enemies that show up naturally in the map .

💭 Tidbit: Elemental Damage and Status Effects (again)

Wait, this section again?
Yeah. The same thing as the table put before the Trap and War Machine sections. Here again in a shameless 'Copy + Paste' for your convenience if need to check what equipment or trap can do what type of damage to the enemy you're looking for.

About Elemental damage and status effects:

Elemental damage is a good thing to keep in mind when creating trap courses as enemies often have different resistances and will take reduced damage from certain ones.

Can more than one effect/ailment be applied to enemies?

Yes! And you should for combos and better killing.

Element resistance damage:

Damage increased by +30%

Damage reduced by -50%

It's not uncommon for Status Effects, also known as Ailments, to be caused by elemental damage, although some of the more specific effects can be only caused by a few choice of traps or weapons.

For simplicity's sake I won't be detailing here what weapon and trap deals what elemental damage or what status effect. You'll be able to read in better detail about it in their specific sections.

* Kill enemies dead.

* Bladestaff
* Blunderbuss
* Broadsword
* Crossbow
* Dwarven Warhammer
* Elven Shortswords
* Magic Longbow
* Stone Staff

* Greatly increased damage against the enemy.

* Arcane Staff
* Blunderbuss
* Chain Lightning Staff
* Crossbow
* Magic Longbow
* Scepter of Domination
* Stone Staff

* None

* Enemies take damage over time.

* Enemies move 20% slower.

* Flame Bracers
* Flame Thrower

* Arrow Wall
* Bank of Archers
* Brimstone
* Ceiling Laser
* Floor Scorcher
* Guardian Archer
* Snow Blower
* Swinging Mace

* Stop enemies in their tracks.

* Enemies take increased damage from Physical attacks (30% more).

* Blunderbuss
* Ice Amulet

* Dart Spitter
* Deep Freeze
* Rip Saw
* Snow Cannon
* Snow Blower

* Enemies killed by Lightning explode damaging other enemies around them.

* Sometimes stun enemies for a very, very brief moment.

* Broadsword
* Chain Lightning Staff
* Ring of Storms

* Ceiling Laser
* Shock Zapper
* Spike Trap
* Wall Charger

* Enemies take increased
damage from all elements (15% more), including Arcane itself.

* Scepter of Domination
* Arcane Staff

* Auto Ballista
* Arcane Dragon
* Brimstone
* Priestess
* Spike Trap
* Window of Butterflies

* Enemies take increased Physical damage (50% more).

* Alchemist Satchel

* Acid Geyser
* Deep Freeze
* Snow Cannon

* Enemies take more damage from all sources (100% more).

* Bladestaff
* Blunderbuss
* Dwarven Warhammer
* Scepter of Domination
* Stone Staff
* Wind Belt

* Flip Trap
* Floor Scorcher
* Gravity Pillar
* Haymaker
* Push Trap
* Spike Wall
* Swinging Mace

* Enemies take damage over time.

* Magic Longbow
* Elven Shortswords

* Wall Blades
* Saw Blade Launcher
* Spike Wall

* Charmed enemies will fight
for your side and will explode
on death whether by your
attacks or other enemies.

* Scepter of Domination

* None

* Enemies will walk backwards.

* None

* Confusion Flower
* Window of Butterflies

* Enemies will walk backwards.

* Jar of Ghosts

* None

* Stop enemies in their tracks.

* Enemies take increased damage from Physical attacks (30% more).

* Stone Staff
* Cyclopean Gaze

* None

* Stop enemies in their tracks.

* Crossbow
* Chain Lightning Staff

* Ceiling Pounder
* Push Trap
* Shock Zapper
* Spike Wall
* Wall Charger

* Enemies may drop a small coin worth 25 money.

* None

* Molten Gold

* Enemies take increased Physical damage (50% more).

* Alchemist Satchel

* Acid Geyser
* Deep Freeze
* Snow Cannon

General Table of Resistances and Weaknesses:

Reminder:

Element resistance damage:

Damage increased by +30%

Damage reduced by -50%

Enemies that weak against it:

* Cyclops Mage
* Zelzadore

* Heavy Orc
* Ogre
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Gnoll Hunter
* Gnoll Grenedier
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Cragg
* Ghorbash

* Ogre
* Troll
* Chromatica

* Heavy Orc
* Armored Ogre
* Mountain Troll
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Cragg
* Ghorbash
* Zelzadore

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Kobold Runner
* Kobold Sapper
* Ogre
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Trol
* Wraith Healer

* Fire Elemental
* Fireling
* Fire Lord
* Light Fire Fiend
* Medium Fire Fiend
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Runner
* Fire Fiend Mage
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Zelzadore
* Hellbat
* Hell Baby

* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Frostbat
* Zelzadore

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Kobold Runner
* Kobold Sapper
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Wraith Healer

* Shockbat
* Zelzadore

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Ogre
* Wraith Healer
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord

* Gnoll Hunter
* Gnoll Grenedier
* Wraith Healer
* Cyclops Mage
* Fire Fiend Mage
* Zelzadore

💭 Tidbit: Table of Resist. and Weakn. (again)

General Table of Resistances and Weaknesses:

Reminder:

Element resistance damage:

Damage increased by +30%

Damage reduced by -50%

Enemies that weak against it:

* Cyclops Mage
* Zelzadore

* Heavy Orc
* Ogre
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Gnoll Hunter
* Gnoll Grenedier
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Cragg
* Ghorbash

* Ogre
* Troll
* Chromatica
* Cyclops Mage
* Medium Cyclops
* Heavy Cyclops
* Cyclops Mesmerizer
* Cyclops Shaman

* Heavy Orc
* Armored Ogre
* Mountain Troll
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Cragg
* Ghorbash
* Zelzadore

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Kobold Runner
* Kobold Sapper
* Ogre
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Trol
* Wraith Healer

* Fire Elemental
* Fireling
* Fire Lord
* Light Fire Fiend
* Medium Fire Fiend
* Heavy Fire Fiend
* Fire Fiend Runner
* Fire Fiend Mage
* Fire Fiend Overlord
* Zelzadore
* Hellbat
* Hell Baby

* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Frostbat
* Zelzadore
* Cyclops Mage
* Medium Cyclops
* Heavy Cyclops
* Cyclops Mesmerizer
* Cyclops Shaman

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Kobold Runner
* Kobold Sapper
* Armored Ogre
* Troll
* Mountain Troll
* Wraith Healer

* Shockbat
* Zelzadore

* Light Orc
* Medium Orc
* Heavy Orc
* Orc Archer
* Dynamite Archer
* Ogre
* Wraith Healer
* Earth Elemental
* Earthling
* Earth Lord

* Gnoll Hunter
* Gnoll Grenedier
* Wraith Healer
* Cyclops Mage
* Fire Fiend Mage
* Zelzadore
* Cyclops Mage
* Medium Cyclops
* Heavy Cyclops
* Cyclops Mesmerizer
* Cyclops Shaman

* Cyclops Mage
* Medium Cyclops
* Heavy Cyclops
* Cyclops Mesmerizer
* Cyclops Shaman

* Bilebat

📕 Enemy Encyclopedia

"Orcs. Must. Die... It's also the name, right? Not a big spoiler."

Part 1:

Light Orc / Medium Orc

Heavy Orc

Orc Archer

Part 2:

Dynamite Archer

Kobold Runner

Kobold Sapper

Part 3:

Ogre

Armored Ogre

Troll

Mountain Troll

Part 4:

Gnoll Hunter

Gnoll Grenadier

Wraith Healer

Cyclops Mage

Part 5:

Earth Elemental

Earthling

Earth Lord

Fire Elemental

Fireling

Fire Lord

Part 6:

Light Fire Fiend

Medium Fire Fiend

Heavy Fire Fiend

Fire Fiend Runner

Fire Fiend Mage

Fire Fiend Overlord

Drastic Steps:

Hellbat

Hell Baby

Bilebat

Voidbat

Shockbat

Frostbat

Chromatica

Cold as Eyes:

Medium Cyclops

Heavy Cyclops

Cyclops Mesmerizer

Cyclops Shaman

Bosses:

Cragg

Ghorbash

Mongrifel

Zelzadore

📜 Enemy Table: Overall View

General Overview Enemy Table:

Light Orc

Light

Nothing

Anything

* Shield (Rift Lord)

Medium Orc

Light

Nothing

Anything

* Shield (Rift Lord)

Heavy Orc

Heavy

Physical
Headshots

Elements
Arcane

* Shield (Rift Lord)

Orc Archer

Light

Nothing

Anything

* Long ranged attack

Dynamite Archer

Light

Nothing

Anything

* High damaging long ranged explosive attack
* Can break Barricades through colateral damage

Kobold Runner

Light

Nothing

Anything

* Very Fast
* Passive; will dash straight to the rift

Kobold Sapper

Light

Nothing

Anything

* Very Fast
* High Damage Suicide Bombs
* Prioritizes Barricades, Guardians and players

Ogre

Very Heavy

Physical

Fire
Ice
Headshots

* Stun attack
* Charges when close to players

Armored Ogre

Very Heavy

Physical
Headshots

Lightning

* Stun attack
* Charges when close to players
* Very high defense and Health

Troll

Very Heavy

Physical
Ice

Fire
Lightning
Headshots

* Health Regeneration

Mountain Troll

Very Heavy

Physical
Headshots
Ice

Fire
Lightning

* Health Regeneration
* Sturdy

Gnoll Hunter

Heavy

Physical
Arcane

Nothing

* Stalk players and Guardians
* Leaps over Barricades
* Powerful slowing melee attack
* Will not take Rift Points if he escapes

Gnoll Grenadier

Heavy

Physical
Arcane

Nothing

* Stalk players and Guardians
* Leaps over Barricades
* Powerful ranged attack that can break Barricades
* Will not take Rift Points if he escapes

Wraith Healer

Light

Arcane

Elements

* Heals nearby enemies

Cyclops Mage

Very Heavy

Elements
Arcane

Headshots

* Powerful and fast homing projectile attack

Earth Elemental

Heavy

Physical
Headshots

Arcane
Ice

* Breaks into two Earthlings when destroyed

Earthling

Light

Physical
Headshots

Arcane
Ice

* Very Fast
* Passive; will dash straight to the rift

Earth Lord

Very Heavy

Physical
Headshots

Arcane
Ice

* Breaks into two Earth Elementals when destroyed

Fire Elemental

Heavy

Fire (Immunity)

Ice

* Breaks into two Firelings when destroyed

Fireling

Light

Fire (Immunity)

Ice

* Very Fast
* Damaging Suicide Bombs
* Prioritizes Barricades

Fire Lord

Very Heavy

Headshots
Fire (Immunity)

Ice

* Breaks into four Firelings when destroyed

Light Fire Fiend

Light

Fire (Immunity)

Ice

* None

Medium Fire Fiend

Light

Fire (Immunity)

Ice

* None

Heavy Fire Fiend

Heavy

Physical
Fire (Immunity)

Ice

* None

Fire Fiend Runner

Light

Fire (Immunity)

Ice

* Very Fast
* Passive; will dash straight to the rift

Fire Fiend Mage

Very Heavy

Fire (Immunity)
Arcane

Ice

* Long ranged attack

Fire Fiend Overlord

Very Heavy

Physical
Headshots
Fire (Immunity)

Ice

* Sturdy

Hellbat

Flying

Fire (Immunity)

Headshots
Ice
Petrify

* Flying enemy
* Burns target dealing damage over time

Hell Baby

Flying

Fire (Immunity)

Headshots
Ice
Petrify

* Flying enemy
* Ranged area attack that Burns dealing damage over time

Frostbat

Flying

Ice (Immunity)

Headshots
Fire
Petrify

* Flying enemy
* Ranged area attack that Freezes for a few seconds

Shockbat

Flying

Lightning (Immunity)

Headshots
Ice
Petrify

* Flying enemy
* Ranged attack that Stuns for a few moments

Voidbat

Flying

Arcane (Immunity)

Headshots
Ice
Petrify

* Flying enemy
* Ranged attack that decreases defense against elemental attacks

Medium Cyclops

Light

Ice
Arcane

Headshots
Acid

* Heals other Cyclopses on death.

Heavy Cyclops

Heavy

Ice
Arcane

Headshots
Acid

* Heals other Cyclopses on death.

Cyclops Mesmerizer

Very Heavy

Ice
Arcane

Headshots
Acid

* Medium range high damage eye laser.
* Heals other Cyclopses on death.

Cyclops Shaman

Very Heavy

Ice
Arcane

Headshots
Acid

* Summons trap disabling totems.
* Heals other Cyclopses on death.

Bosses:

Cragg

Immovable

Physical
Headshots

Elements
Arcane

* Jam traps over a large area

Ghorbash

Immovable

Physical

Nothing

* Break Barricades

Mongrifel

Immovable

Nothing

Fire
Lightning

* Very fast; very tough for Runner
* Leaps over Barricades

Zelzadore

Immovable

Arcane
Elements

Physical
Headshots

* Resurrect enemies

Chromatica

Immovable

Varies

Headshots

* Changes elemental resistance

⚖ Enemy Table: Weight Classes

The Weight Table:

Light Orc

Heavy Orc

Ogre

Cragg

Hellbat

Medium Orc

Earth Elemental

Troll

Ghorbash

Hell Baby

Orc Archer

Fire Elemental

Armored Ogre

Mongrifel

Frostbat

Dynamite Archer

Gnoll Hunter

Mountain Troll

Zelzadore

Shockbat

Kobold Runner

Gnoll Grenadier

Earth Lord

Chromatica

Voidbat

Kobold Sapper

Heavy Fire Fiend

Fire Lord

Earthling

Heavy Cyclops

Cyclops Mage

Light Fire Fiend

Fire Fiend Overlord

Medium Fire Fiend

Cyclops Mesmerizer

Fire Fiend Runner

Cyclops Shaman

⠀⤷ Enemies [Part 1]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies in this part:

Light Orc / Medium Orc
Heavy Orc
Orc Archer

________________________________________________________________

Light and Medium Orc

* Being an Orc in a game called "Orcs Must Die!"

* Will carry Shields on Rift Lord.
* Shield will allow them to take a hit, no matter how strong or weak it is.

Our most loyal and traditional costumers we all love to kill in the most creative ways.

Light and Medium Orcs are rarely a threat on their own, but they do come in very large numbers, after all this game is literally named after doing something to them.

Orcs do start bringing shields on Rift Lord difficulty which allows them to tank a hit, no matter how powerful, so exercise some caution around it as underestimating that with their sheer numbers is a recipe for defeat.
________________________________________________________________

Heavy Orc

* Will carry Shields on Rift Lord.
* Shield will allow them to take a hit, no matter how strong or weak it is.

Tougher than their smaller brothers and this time around they're actually noticeably stronger being somewhat resistant against physical damage and can even take a few Headshots before dying. They can soak a decent amount of damage for an enemy that's very common, so don't underestimate them too much.

Heavy Orcs are very common and even more numerous in War Scenarios, so you'll need some heavy crowd control strategy to deal with them. Keep in mind most types of elemental damage will tear them a new one, maybe several ones.
________________________________________________________________

Orc Archer

Moderate

Very High

(Rift Lord)

Annoying enemies that will persistently try to snipe you from a good distance should you get in their sights. Unlike previous games these guys actually hurt a lot and are very stubborn when trying to kill you, most of times they'll stand in their spot firing away until you get to cover or kill them.

The fact they're the same color of the other Orcs can make difficult to pinpoint where the Archer is in the middle of a crowd, so it's kind of annoying dealing with them when you're fighting the bigger waves.

While there is no penalty for dying, you'll most likely fight them close to your killzones and getting kicked back to the rift can cause a lot of (maybe not so) unforeseen problems. This is particularly dangerous in Rift Lord since enemies can easily overpower your defenses if you die at a bad moment.

Orc Archers are also problematic for your own Guardian Archers as they'll target them and Guardian Archers have no targetting priority they'll get shot until they die since they won't counter the Orc Archers.

Area hitting attacks like the Blunderbuss secondary, Flame Bracers or the Arcane Staff secondary, can be useful in getting them without forcing you to aim in the middle of a chaotic fight. Since they're pretty fragile any damaging trap does a good job at dealing with them too.

Alternatively you can walk away and let your traps do the killing for you at the end of your trap course.

Tip:
Orc Archers have very high aggression thresholds which means that they will still target you even if a lot of other enemies are fighting you.
Unlike previous games these guys will not leave you alone until get out of their line of fire, or you die, or (preferentially) until they die.

Annoying in War Mage and deadly in Rift Lord. Don't underestimate these guys.

⠀⤷ Enemies [Part 2]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies in this part:

Dynamite Archer
Kobold Runner
Kobold Sapper

________________________________________________________________

Dynamite Archer

Very High

Extreme (Rift Lord)

* High damaging long ranged explosive attack
* Can break Barricades through colateral damage

This is one of the enemies that might teach you to keep an eye on the mini-map and stay on your toes for those yellow dots. Dynamite Archers hit harder than regular Archers and their attack will damage Barricades as an extra problem.

Even though they're easier to distinguish than regular Archers with their puke-yellow skin, it's not always easy to pick them off from the crowd of enemies and the last thing you want to do if you have a Barricade trap course up is try to jump after them while they bombard you.

These things are fierce competitors to Gnoll Grenadiers since they love to kill your Guardian Archers whenever they have the chance, but being more difficult to distinguish amidst the crowd and more common compared to their canine buddies.

Tip:
Most of times it's better to go out of your way and intercept this type of enemy as they will almost always bring problems by either heavily damaging your Barricades or you. Always keep an eye for the yellow dots in the mini-map, especially in Rift Lord where they are more common.

You'll learn to be on the watch for this enemy as you do not want the image on the right to happen.
________________________________________________________________

Kobold Runner

* Very Fast
* Passive; will dash straight to the rift

Kobold Runners are some of the squishiest enemies in the game with near everything being able to one-shot them with ease. However they can cause plenty of trouble for you by the mere fact they might speed through most trap courses if left unchecked.

Kobold Runners have the bad habit of spearheading waves every now and then triggering a bunch of traps meant for beefier targets which is problematic enough, but they also usually come in packs and one or two almost always finds a way to get past everything unless their movement is hampered by Tar or something else.

Grinders are a good way to deal with these pests. You can set one far from your killzone and let it work its magic against these pests. A Grinder can easily mow down a good number of Kobolds without risk jamming.

You can and might waste time chasing after a Runner that got past your defenses in a mad dash to prevent them from ruining your Perfect Victory and that moment of distraction can let more enemies get through. Alternatively a Runner can get through you unnoticed amidst the chaotic fight and ruin your perfect game.

Tip:
Ceiling Lasers, Grinders, Shock Zappers and Brimstone are some of the best traps to deal with these pests. Anything combined with Tar will also bring them down reliably, however in lower numbers.
Do take care as in later maps they attack in much larger numbers, so the Shock Zapper and Brimstone can run out of charges before they killed all of them.

________________________________________________________________

Kobold Sapper

Very High

Extreme (Rift Lord)

* Very Fast
* High Damage Suicide Bombs
* Prioritizes Barricades, Guardians and players

Kobold Sappers are among the most hated enemies in the game due to the fact they exist only to blow up your Barricades, Guardians and you (not necessarily in this order, mind you). Giving how much more Barricade focused this game is this is very bad news.

They're as squishy and fragile as their Runner counterparts and are somewhat easier to hit due to their barrel of bombs and the usual anti-Runner strategies work well against them.

Ceiling Lasers, Shock Zappers and Brimstone are good traps to dispose of them, but remember that the Shock Zapper and Brimstone can run out of charges and Sappers sometimes comes in the middle of waves where tons of enemies show up.

The mere sound of Sappers invading the map can be panic inducing if you're not prepared for them (thankfully dying to them no longer deducts Rift Points from you), but if you're prepared you can turn the tables making the Sappers explode amidst the enemy crowd hurting them as much as they'd hurt you.

The Ceiling Laser in particular set near the doors is a very good way to kill them before they even think about starting trouble, but make sure to set enough of them and correctly.

If you are able to lump Sappers together you can kill large groups of them in one attack.

⠀⤷ Enemies [Part 3]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies covered in this part:

Ogre
Armored Ogre
Troll
Mountain Troll

________________________________________________________________

Ogre

Moderate
Moderate (Rift Lord)

* Stun attack
* Charges when close to players

Ogres are bigger, beefier and angrier enemies that have a nasty habit of causing trouble for unsuspecting players. They tend to come in much smaller numbers than Orcs, but are no less problematic.

I get the feeling Ogres exist to teach new players that aiming for the head with ranged weapons is the way to go and that pure melee combat isn't the best solution against every single thing.

An Ogre's biggest problem is the fact he can stun you if you get too close to him and they're deceptively fast when giving chase, and backpedalling is not enough to escape their charge attacks. The stun lasts only for a brief moment, but when you're surrounded by lots of enemies on in the middle of a huge fight a second is all that's needed for something to go wrong.

Keep your distance and enjoy your head target practice with these guys. It's oddly satisfying to pelt their heads away with whatever ranged weapon you might bring.

Tip:
Ogres charge at players based on a certain distance , medium range, about 2~3 floor traps of given distance, and if he's targeting anyone. If you're too close or too far they won't charge at you.
However if you're fighting too many enemies and the Ogre isn't actively targeting you he won't do the charge, but if you kill the enemies targeting you, an Ogre will eventually start targeting you and if the distance is right he do the charge attack.

Charging Ogres can, might and will knock Orcs over Barricades , so be very careful especially in maps like The Basement.

Some levels (like Secret Fortress) are brimming with Ogres, Armored versions included, be prepared for them.
________________________________________________________________

Armored Ogre

Very High

Extreme (Rift Lord)

* Stronger than Ogres
* Stun attack
* Charges when close to players

What's worse than an Ogre? Two Ogres. What's worse than two Ogres? An Armored Ogre.

Imagine Ogres only nastier and with a VERY HIGH resistance against physical damage and a ridiculous defense against Headshots. While the usual Ogre strategies often work, they take so long to kill that it's almost always a good idea to fight them when you have aid of your traps to whittle them down and kill these things fast.

This thing is a rather common sight in Rift Lord difficulty, and in late game maps you might fight one or two of them at Wave 1, so you really have to find a way to deal with them reliably.

Freezing or petrifying is a good way to keep Armored Ogres in check, weapons like Chain Lightning Staff and the Scepter or Domination (Charming them is also a good option) or the Arcane Staff are also good options to deal more damage to them as they deal elemental damage instead of Physical.

Tip:
Armored Ogres are very vulnerable to most Elemental trap damage in particular. Fire Arrow Walls, Ice Rip Saws, Shock Zappers and Ice Dart Spitter will do great damage against these things.

Armored Ogres are best fought alongside your traps whenever possible as they take an eternity to bring down using only weapons.
________________________________________________________________

Troll

Moderate
Moderate (Rift Lord)

* Fire
* Lightning
* Headshots

Trolls are in basically green Ogres minus the obnoxious stun part and much less belly. They share the same fragile cranial problem of their fatter counterparts, but can be obnoxiously hard to get headshots at due to their naturally bigger height.

The main treat with this enemy is that if you leave him be after doing some damage he will start regenerating and will force you to re-do the job of killing him all over.

Trolls are unusually strong against Ice damage and have a strong resistance against physical damage too, but they can be easily brought down via Headshots. Fire and Lightning are also good ways to quickly get rid of these things.

Trolls regenerate health which makes fighting them only with melee much more time consuming.
________________________________________________________________

Mountain Troll

Moderate

Very High

(Rift Lord)

* Physical
* Ice
* Headshots

* Health Regeneration
* Much sturdier than regular Trolls

Mountain Trolls are the bigger cousins of Trolls and share most of their same traits, like self-healing and resistance against ice and physical damage. While regular Trolls won't pose much of a threat, Mountain Trolls are pretty tough enemies you should treat with about the same respect as Armored Ogres.

Mountain Trolls are considerably sturdier than regular Trolls but not on the same ridiculousness of Armored Ogres and just like them Headshots will be less effective against Mountain Trolls (unlike what its tooltip says, keeping the old tradition of Mountain Trolls having their tooltip wrong), but headshotting them is still a very good way to quickly deal with them if you're not too close to your traps. Fire and Lightning traps will rip them apart just as easily as well.

Their regeneration is more potent than of regular Trolls, so try not to leave an unfinished job before moving to another target. They're right on par with Armored Ogres in terms of "tankiness", so if they show up in a lane you're not watching be very careful as they're often one of the enemies that can power through even some good designed trap courses.

Mountain Trolls hit much harder, on par with Armored Ogres, and take much longer to kill. Their health regeneration is also stronger. Watch out for them.

⠀⤷ Enemies [Part 4]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies covered in this part:

Gnoll Hunter
Gnoll Grenadier
Wraith Healer
Cyclops Mage

________________________________________________________________

Gnoll Hunter:

* Stalk players and Guardians
* Leaps over Barricades
* Powerful slowing melee attack
* Will not take Rift Points if he escapes

Gnoll Hunters are enemies that go specifically after players and Guardians, prioritizing players, they always howl upon entering the map and are indicated by a diamond shaped icon. They will never try to escape the map, and even if they do they won't penalize the player with loss of Rift Points.

Hunters are fairly tough and posses a slowing melee attack that will make escaping from them nearly impossible if you get hit even once. They are very dangerous opponents for unwary players and should not be underestimated.

Hunters will always attempt to target you, or Guardians, so always make sure to see where they're coming from so they won't catch you off-guard if one spawns from a door you're not watching directly.

When you hear howling Gnoll Hunters are certainly coming after you. Use crowd control effects to deal with them more easily.
________________________________________________________________

Gnoll Grenedier:

* Stalk players and Guardians
* Leaps over Barricades
* Powerful ranged attack that can break Barricades
* Will not take Rift Points if he escapes

Gnoll Grenadiers behave the same way as their Hunter buddies: they chase and seek to kill players and their Guardians and will never escape the map unless you force them to walk through the rift, and just like Hunters they will not reduce your Rift Points even if you do it.

The main problem with Grenadiers is the fact they're a very deadly distraction. Their bomb attacks can and will break your Barricades, kill your Guardians or damage your Decoys if you're not careful. If you have any of these around they'll force you to move to another spot which is problematic enough, but if you're not ready for them a single Grenadier can ruin a perfectly good run by distracting you long enough so enemies can power through your traps.

Grenadiers are also much more skittish than Hunters and will move unpredictably around, so having something to Stun, Freeze or Petrify them will help wonders dealing with this type of enemy quickly.

Tip:
Grenediers don't howl when entering the map, the noise announcing their invasion is far more more subtle, a mixture of hissing with low growl , so that can easily go unnoticed until you get an angry Grenedier chucking explosives at your face.

Grenediers are dangerous foes that do a lot of damage and can break Barricades if you fight too close to them. Be very careful around them.
________________________________________________________________

Wraith Healer:

Moderate
Moderate (Rift Lord)

Wraith Healers are enemies that support other enemies by healing them. They're pretty squishy and are not very common, but are annoying enough that you'll most likely prioritize them as soon as you see one in the crowd.

The biggest problem is that Healers can do obnoxious stuff like start healing tougher enemies like Ogres or Trolls forcing you to waste more time on them than you expected. Healers are also one of the few enemies resistant to Arcane damage, so be careful if you use a lot of this damage type.

Wraith Healers in action.
________________________________________________________________

Cyclops Mage:

* Long ranged attack
* Powerful and fast homing projectile attack

Cyclops Mages are one of the more annoying enemies in the game, they are aggressive toward players and Guardians and will use long ranged, fast moving, homing projectiles that deals considerable damage. The only saving grace is that they don't stalk players like Gnoll Grendiers do and they are very vulnerable to Physical damage, which means most weapons will do a very good job at dispatching these things.

It's not unusual to employ tactics to kill these things as fast as possible, either by hunting them down personally or by setting traps to deal with them.

Mages are also on the same weight class of Ogres and Trolls, which means Flip Traps will not work on them without a specific Unique upgrade and they won't be fazed by the Wind Belt at all.

Tip:
The Cyclops Mage's projectile although fast has a very predictable trajectory and will always circle the player if they sidestep to dodge it. You can use this to make the projectile crash into a wall or an obstacle.
You can also jump while sidestepping, if done correctly this will make the projectile crash on the ground.

Link to a video example (Steam won't allow short clips in the preview):
https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugxl4aajMMts3AlKeF14AaABCQ

Cyclops Mages die easily but are always a threat.

⠀⤷ Enemies [Part 5]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies covered in this part:

Earth Elemental
Earthling
Earth Lord

________________________________________________________________

Earth Elemental

* Breaks into two Earthlings when destroyed

Earth Elementals are tough costumers that resists the very common Physical damage and will break into two small Earthlings upon death, they're decently tough, they hit hard and often come in pairs, sometimes more.

Never leave this thing to kill last as you don't want to have to deal with Earthlings running around beyond your killzone and having to chase them like Runners. A pair of Earthlings may not be trouble, but two or three pairs can cause trouble, especially during early waves.

Tip:
Be very careful around multiple Earth Elementals as Earthlings will bolt to your rift like Runner enemies as soon as the elemental dies. The little poof of smoke they do upon death is like a ninja bomb and can camouflage the Earthling. It's much easier than it looks letting one slip by and ruin your 5-Skull Victory.

Earth Elementals rarely come alone, if ever in Rift Lord, so be ready to deal with the Earthlings.
________________________________________________________________

Earthling

* Very Fast
* Passive; will dash straight to the rift

Earthlings are basically beefy (rocky?) Runner enemies that are slightly tougher to kill due to their resistance against Physical damage. They're fast enough to outrun a few traps, so watch out for them, especially if they're near the end of your killzone.

Be careful when killing Earth Elementals since Earthlings will bolt to the rift as soon as the elemental dies and it's much easier than it looks to let one get past you in the middle of a fight.

Earthlings are as fast as Runners and just enough tougher to get past some traps and ruin your day. Keep your eyes on the mini-map.
________________________________________________________________

Earth Lord

Moderate

Very High

(Rift Lord)

* Breaks into two Earth Elementals when destroyed

How do you feel about dealing an enemy that breaks into smaller versions of it each time you kill it? Sounds like fun? No? Because it isn't.

Earth Lords are among the most annoying type of enemies due to how much time you can waste handling it and its smaller versions. Make sure you either have enough time to deal with them or fight this thing close to your traps to hasten the process of killing them.

Being an Elemental Lord means this enemy is on the same weight class of Ogres and Trolls, so most physics traps like the Flip Trap and the Push Trap will not throw them around. They hit very hard too, almost on par with Armored Ogres, so be careful if you attempt to fight it using melee weapons.

Tip:
Be always prepared for Earth Lords either with traps or weapons to deal with with lesser forms as you might waste precious time dealing with them and their lesser forms and one of them, usually an Earthling, always seems to get past every trap alive.
Weapons like the Bladestaff (it can knock Earth Elementals) and Flame Bracers (great damage and area of effect versus all forms) are good choices to quickly deal with them on your own.

⠀⤷ Enemies [Part 6]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies covered in this part:

Fire Elemental
Fireling
Fire Lord

________________________________________________________________

Fire Elemental

* Headshots
* Fire (Immunity)

* Breaks into two Firelings when destroyed

Fire Elementals are about the same deal as Earth Elementals, sans the complete immunity to Fire, they're tougher than regular Orcs and will break into smaller parts once killed. So they're nothing to worry about, right?

Not exactly. They break into two Firelings and these are enemies that will explode on your Barricades as soon as they get the chance. Fire Elementals usually come in decent numbers so you have to think about the Firelings they'll leave behind because if you kill a Fire Elemental in the middle of a Barricade-centred killzone the Firelings will immediately blow up on your Barricades and a bunch of Firelings might create a hole in your Barricade killzone.

Targetting the Fire Elemental before it has a chance to get near your Barricades is a good idea, but having the Trap Reset Trinket with the right Unique to repair Barricades also helps to lessen the trouble this enemy brings.

Tip:
Killing Fire Elementals while they are affected by the Gravity Pillar will prevent them from damaging your Barricades if they're at good enough height.

Fire Elementals are more dangerous for the Firelings they carry than for what they are.
________________________________________________________________

Fireling

* Suicide bomb itself on Barricades, players or Guardians
* Very fast moving enemy

Firelings are smaller versions of Kobold Sappers and will suicide themselves on Barricades if they get the chance. If you do not have Barricades nearby they'll go after you or your Guardians just like Sappers would, which is enough to make you very wary of these things.

Although these things are very fragile and die easily from most damage sources, they are immune to fire damage sources can cause a few problems depending on your trap and weapon selection. Even if killed they explode and the explosion can cause damage to your Barricades, so make sure you kill them away from them.

Firelings sometimes comes on their own, without you needing to break Fire Elementals/Lords in maps, so keep an eye for them.

Tip:
Generally speaking most anti-Sapper tactics work against them with the exception of the regular Brimstone. Any weapon with fast fire rate works well against them too.

________________________________________________________________

Fire Lord

High
Very High (Rift Lord)

* Headshots
* Fire (Immunity)

* Breaks into four Firelings when destroyed

Fire Lords are Fire Elementals on steroids, the usual anti-Elemental strategies work against them, but keep in mind this thing creates four Firelings instead of two for your to deal with. In certain maps, like Colosseum, where you might have to use a lot of Barricades to survive they show up often, so always be ready to deal with the inevitable swarm of Firelings.

Hunting this enemy and killing them before they actually reach your Barricade killbox is a very, very good idea as when they die the four Firelings will either cause heavy damage to your Barricades or outright destroy them.

Tip:
Any crowd control weapon can easily handle the four Firelings as soon as the Fire Lord dies if you're quick enough.
For instance: the Crossbow and Stone Staff can hold almost all of them in place if you use its secondary attacks quickly enough.

Melee weapons like the Bladestaff can also kill all of them at once, beware that you must be at the right distance to avoid damage, if you're too close you'll get exploded for massive damage (or just death).

Try to kill these things as far as possible from your Barricades.

⠀➥ Enemies [Fire Fiend Family]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

General Overview of Fire Fiend enemies:

Fire Fiends are enemies introduced in the Mage Tower map and are very common from that point onward. They are basically like most type of enemies you've faced so far, but with complete immunity to the fire element -- no matter how powerful the trap or attack they will not affect these enemies.

There are some differences between some of the Fire Fiends and the Orcs, though:

Heavy Fire Fiends are not resistant against Headshotting so you can kill them quickly with most ranged weapons. Fire Fiend Mages act more like Orc Archers on steroids since their projectiles will not home on you like the one from Cyclops Mages.

How to deal with them?

Generally speaking all Fire Fiends are very weak to Ice damage in general and it will deal significant damage to them, they also never carry shields but have a bit more health than their Orcs counterparts.

General Overview Enemy Table:

Light Fire Fiend

Light Orc

Very Low
Very Low (Rift Lord)

Medium Fire Fiend

Medium Orc

Low
Low (Rift Lord)

Heavy Fire Fiend

Heavy Orc

Low
Low (Rift Lord)

Fire Fiend Runner

Kobold Runner

Low
Moderate (Rift Lord)

Fire Fiend Mage

Cyclops Mage

Low
Moderate (Rift Lord)

Fire Fiend Overlord

Ogre

Moderate
Moderate (Rift Lord)

A collective choir of big "nope" to your fire traps right here.

⠀⤷ Enemies [Drastic Steps DLC]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies covered in this part:

Hellbat
Hell Baby
Frostbat
Shockbat
Voidbat

________________________________________________________________

General overview of Drastic Step exclusive enemies, the flying army:

Flying enemies show up in the five maps of Drastic Steps and two of Cold as Eyes. They are represented by triangles in the mini-map.

Flying enemies' are very dangerous threats not only because they fly over everything rendering the vast majority of floor traps useless, but will usually take very short routes to the rift in many levels.

Another big problem with these enemies is the fact each one can inflict a status condition, the same ones you can inflict on enemies, so you'll probably taste a bit of your own medicine dealing with these dangerous pests.

Flying enemies almost always attack in pretty large groups, swarms, of enemies and makes fighting them a very time consuming and dangerous task since you'll still have to deal with the same number of enemies on the ground. Needless to say it's extremely easy to let one slip or get bombarded by a few of them and get completely screwed over by them.

What traps work against them?

Regarding traps, some of the best experiences I had using ceilings traps were using Grinders , Shock Zappers and Gravity Pillars . Haymakers are also surprisingly effective in Canyon Keep when set in sufficient numbers.

To be frank most traps are pretty ineffective against them. Even those (probably) designed to deal with these enemies, like the Auto Ballista and the Guardian Archer, are not very good since they don't deal enough damage or have enough range to kill the large number of enemies attacking.

What about weapons?

When it comes to intercepting them personally, the Stone Staff is my absolute favorite choice since it will murder dozens of them if they're close enough instantly with its secondary.

Weapons with high fire rate like the Crossbow , or that hits hard like the Blunderbuss or Arcane Staff are also good options. The Chain Lightning Staff is not usually a good choice due to its low attack rate, but its secondary attack can kill a good number of Hell Babies which is helpful in Abandoned Passages.

Magic Longbow with Bleed upgrade will down any type of flying enemy in two shots on Rift Lord.

The Scepter of Domination and Ice Amulet are a good choices as well, but always watch out for elemental bats if those are your choices.

The Wind Belt can halt their progress a bit, they'll spin stunned for a few moments, but you need to be pretty darn close to them for it to work.
________________________________________________________________

Hellbat

High

Very High

(Rift Lord)

* Long range area attack.
* Burns. Deals damage over time.

The most common type of flying enemy throughout Drastic Steps and one of the more annoying.

_____________________________

Hell Baby

* Long range area attack.
* Burns. Deals damage over time.

I like to call them flying Kobolds. Small, annoying, and loves to screw your Perfect Victory because they're faster than regular flyers and will only attack you a few times before deciding to keep running to the rift.

_____________________________

Frostbat

* Long range area attack.
* Freeze. Stop players in their tracks.

Frostbats are among the worst of the bad lot that flyers are.

_____________________________

Shockbat

High

Very High

(Rift Lord)

* Long range area attack.
* Stun. Stops players for a moment on hit.

Shockbat's attack can throw you off quite a bit.

_____________________________

Voidbat

High

Very High

(Rift Lord)

* Long range area attack.
* Arcane. Lowers defense against elements.

Voidbats attacking. The least annoying probably.

⠀➥ Enemies [Cold as Eyes DLC]

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies covered in this part:

Medium Cyclops and Heavy Cyclops
Cyclops Mesmerizer
Cyclops Shaman

________________________________________________________________

Medium Cyclops and Heavy Cyclops

* Heals other Cyclopses on death.

Old costumers with different skins and an annoying ability to heal each other upon death. The silver lining here is that they don't have the ever, extremely annoying, resistance to Physical damage and headshots will do some grievous damage quickly killing these very common enemies of Cold as Eyes.

Their health is about the same of Medium and Heavy Orcs, and they hit just as hard, so be careful, especially in Rift Lord as a Medium Cyclops dying will health a lot of his buddies' health bar which can easily make you waste more time than you expected dealing with a crowd of these things, and this trait can enable them to endure long enough to survive trap setups that would kill even the toughest of enemies.

The healing aura caused by the death of any Cyclops (Mages included).
________________________________________________________________

Cyclops Mesmerizer

* Very high damage, medium-ranged eye laser.
* Heals other Cyclopses on death.

Cyclops Mesmerizers are basically Orc Archers with a very nasty eye laser attack that does heavy damage at constant pace once they get their sights on you. The saving grace of this enemy is that they're nowhere as aggressive as Orc Archers themselves and will usually not target you if Medium and Heavy Cyclopses are already trying to kill you.

Be wary when fighting around them as their eye laser will easily make you drop dead in a matter of seconds if you're not careful and they don't have a very distinct sound to signalize their attack.

He's got his eye on you.
________________________________________________________________

Cyclops Shaman

* Summon totems that disables traps over an area.
* Heals other Cyclopses on death.

One of the more dangerous foes of the Cold as Eyes campaign and something to always be on the watch for. The Cyclops Shaman has the nasty ability to create totems that will disable traps over an area creating problematic gaps in your defenses.

The totems are particularly deadly for Barricaded defenses as losing even one or two traps in those trap networks WILL create a gigantic hole in your trap course that will certainly let enemies get through it.

Something to know is that totems are rather fragile and can be broken by attacks like the Flame Bracers primary or the piercing shots from the Stone Staff primary. Collateral damage from your traps can also break the totems, but don't rely entirely on it.

Cyclops Shamans are also pretty easy to kill, so if you have the chance to intercept and kill them, do so before they stir up trouble with their totems.

Examples of totems disabling traps.

Tip:
Totems show up in the mini-map with their own distinct icon. Use it to know if a Shaman has summoned one and keep an eye on that side since it means some of your traps are currently disabled.

The Shaman's totem icon on the mini-map.

⠀⤷ Enemies [Bosses] {Part 1}

WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS!!

I will details my favored strategies against bosses, so if you don't want to be spoiled and want to see firsthand what they do, ignore this section!

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies covered in this part:

Cragg
Ghorbash

Boss enemies:

Boss enemies encountered in War Scenarios and Scramble Mode as debuffs (with the exception of Chromatica for Scramble).

They often have unique abilities that makes them extremely dangerous if left unattended and are best dealt with personally, sometimes even before they reach your trap course.

Generally speaking in most cases it's best to intercept bosses before they reach your traps, especially Cragg and, depending on the case, Ghorbash and Mongrifel, before they even try anything funny with their special abilities.
________________________________________________________________

Cragg

High

Very High

(Rift Lord)
Extreme (Scramble)

* Disable traps over a large area.
* Passive. Will not attack players or Guardians.

Cragg is the first boss to show up and his special ability is to disable traps over a large radius, his ability, but he can use it twice if your killzone is large enough. The disable duration is fairly long and more than enough to let a ton of enemies slip by. Cragg will not waste his ability on a few scattered traps, he will on War Machines, but a few Spike Traps will not force him to use his ability.

Cragg is one of the bosses that is imperative to be taken down quickly before he reaches any key parts of the map that are heavily trapped since he will make those traps useless.

Tip:
The Trap Reset Trinket will "heal" the traps and make them work normally without having to wait for the long delay of Cragg's ability to end. Keep in mind Cragg can and might use his ability again, though.
You can interrupt Cragg's skills while he raises his hammer with crowd control effects (stun, freeze, petrify...)

One last thing to note is that Cragg's ability will not affect War Guardians.

Cragg is particularly deadly in Scramble Mode as maps there tend to be much smaller and you won't have nearly enough funds to set a proper killzone before he shows up. Always bring a powerful crowd control tool or early trap setup to deal with him as fast as possible (and hope Scramble mode doesn't trip you up by making enemies immune to crowd control effects).

Cragg disabling traps.

Cragg's special ability's range.

Be very careful with Cragg in Scramble as even with weapon buffs he's much more dangerous due to the smaller maps and lowered income compared to War Scenarios.
________________________________________________________________

Ghorbash

Moderate
High (Rift Lord)
Extreme (Scramble)

* Breaks any Barricades in his path.
* Very high damage against players and Guardians.

Ghorbash appears as the boss of Front Lawn, his special ability is to break your Barricades. On Front Lawn he shows up in the final wave and in 99% of cases he will head for the left path of the map.

Generally speaking Ghorbash can be easily intercepted and killed before he does any lasting damage to your Barricades, especially if you can stop him for your War Machines kill him or even you kill him on your own. Take note that Ghorbash's toughness is right on par, if not above, of Armored Ogres, so be ready for a relatively long fight.

Ghorbash's threat however is extremely high in Scramble Mode. Whenever he shows up he will always take the shortest path to the rifts and will mess with any Barricades in the way, and might show up in different lanes, so chances of him going for a path that you did not prepare any traps are very high.

Ghorbash breaking Barricades in his path.

⠀⤷ Enemies [Bosses] {Part 2}

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High <

Very High

< Extreme

Enemies covered in this part:

Mongrifel
Zelzadore
Chromatica

________________________________________________________________

Mongrifel

High

Very High

(Rift Lord)
Extreme (Scramble)

* Ignores all Barricades in his path; goes over them as if they weren't there.
* Very tough for a Runner enemy. An Ogre in Kobold's skin.
* Passive. Will not attack players or Guardians.

Mongrifel is the boss of Mage Tower, his special ability is to ignore Barricades like Gnolls.

Mongrifel appears in the north side of Mage Tower. He will always head to the northern side of the tower interior, probably where a lot of people set their killboxes. If you set your killbox in the southern side (possibly to use your War Machines against the horde) you'll need to hurry and intercept Mongrifel.

In Scramble Mode a debuff can make Mongrifel show up in every wave and like Ghorbash this is extremely dangerous because although Mongrifel dies quickly for a boss enemy, he's can distract you long enough for enemies to go force their ways through your early fragile trap course causing a ton of problems.

Don't be afraid of using crowd control effects against him (or most bosses for that case).
________________________________________________________________

Zelzadore

Low
Moderate (Rift Lord)

Very High

(Scramble)

* Arcane
* Elements
* Headshots

* Revives the last enemy killed near him.

Zelzadore is the boss of Dragon Boneyard. The special ability of this boss is to revive one enemy, usually the last one you killed near him.

Zelzadore's special ability doesn't look like much, and truth be told: it isn't... In the War Scenario he shows up. In Scramble Mode, a debuff can make him show up in every wave of every map the debuff is active and there you'll realize how infuriating this boss can be since he will revive Ogres, Trolls, Gnolls and maybe even a Fire Lord or Fireling right in your face or close to your Barricades.

Scramble Mode has the other problem that is you have lowered funds compared to the (relatively speaking) massive income of War Scenarios, so a revived very heavy enemy can bring a ton of unforeseen problems.

Tip:
Just like Cragg, you can interrupt Zelzadore's special ability before he actually revives something with crowd control effects (stun, freeze, petrify...)

Even though this boss doesn't resist Physical damage, like most bosses, he is still deceptively tough and even headshots will take a long time to bring him down. Make sure you have time in your hands when dealing with him.

Zelzadore can resurrect basically any enemy. From Orcs to Armored Ogres to Fire Lords to Firelings right in your face.
________________________________________________________________

Chromatica

Moderate

Very High

(Rift Lord)

* Varies (see Special trait for details)
* Crowd Control effects (Stun, Petrify, Freeze...)

* Flying enemy.
* Changes elemental immunity while moving through the map.

Chromatica approaches.

Chromatica is the boss of Canyon Keep, the only War Scenario of Drastic Steps campaign.

Unlike most bosses Chromatica is completely unfazed by any crown control effect: freeze, petrify, stun or confusion will do nothing to hamper the progress of this boss and to top it all Chromatica will change elements while flying towards your rift.

The only saving grace that doesn't make this boss a true nightmare to fight is the fact Chromatica is rather fragile for a boss and if you focus your attention on this enemy chances are you'll kill this thing before it even has a chance to reach your killzone. But like most bosses, the main function of this enemy is to distract players.

Chromatica ready to swap elements.

Finished, the boss swapped to Acid element.

👣 Rift Lord Walkthrough

What is this section about?

This is how I beat the campaigns. This is not a strict guide and you can always change something to suit your tastes more instead of using what I use in the videos.

Found a better way to build a trap course? Change it to your liking.
Have weapons you like using other than the ones I do? Change it to suit your needs.
Prefer to play less aggressively? Perfectly fine.

I left this one for last because the video previews can be really bothersome and take a lot of space in the guide.

Why there is more than one video for some maps?

Sometimes I find other strategies for maps I like to share. But usually the ones at top left are the safest methods I could come up with .

Was this done after the Ceiling Laser nerf patch?:
Yes. Every video was at the August 11th, 2021 patch which considerably nerfed Ceiling Lasers, Saw Blade Launcher and Tar.

Another thing to note:
Order Enclave and Slag Field sucks.

If you need a playlist with maps completed click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS7CYzATG6xA7lGNZVfCTxWmCFG31ERqC

Map Order:

North Wing
Great Room
Side Entrance
Hidden Dock
Split Stairs
The Lava Pits
Close Quarters
Cliffside
Front Lawn
Coastal Hallways
Secret Fortress
Mage Tower
Master's Courtyard
Sludge Shelves
Dragon Boneyard
The Basement
Colosseum
Order Temple
Abandoned Passage
Aqueducts
Canyon Keep
Order Enclave
Slag Field
Northern Rampart
Icebound Mine
Frostbitten

Maps 01 ~ 09 [Old Friends]

For a playlist with maps completed, click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS7CYzATG6xA7lGNZVfCTxWmCFG31ERqC

Maps covered in this section:

01) North Wing
02) Great Room
03) Side Entrance
04) Hidden Dock
05) Split Stairs
06) The Lava Pits
07) Close Quarters
08) Cliffside
09) Front Lawn

______________________________________

Old Friends:

Map 01 - North Wing

Difficulty: ⭐✩✩✩✩

Personal Notes:
One lane, one path.
North Wing is nothing scary. The only problem is that Par time can trip you up a little and there are some Gnoll Grenediers to let you know that Rift Lord will have different, though waves wainting for you.

______________________________________

Map 02 - Great Room

Difficulty: ⭐✩✩✩✩

Personal Notes:
Great Room is a map that may force you to use Barricades to funnel enemies into a smaller space as the last waves can be pretty tough to handle unless you have a plan and good crowd control tools with you.
Other than that it's another easy map, but it features Armored Ogres, so watch out.

______________________________________

Map 03 - Side Entrance

Difficulty: ⭐⭐✩✩✩

Personal Notes:
Side Entrance is when Rift Lord stops playing nice. You'll face Dynamite Archers, Mountain Trolls, Armored Ogres all while Kobold Runners try to sneak past amidst the chaos.
If anything this map might teach you the value of anti-Runner tactics like using Brimstone, Shock Zappers, Grinders or Ceiling Lasers because you can bet they will ruin your day if they can.

______________________________________

Map 04 - Hidden Dock

Difficulty: ⭐⭐✩✩✩

Personal Notes:
This isn't a very difficult map, but Rift Lord throws a lot of Sappers your way here, so it's another map to teach you the dangers of Barricade breaking enemies.

______________________________________

Map 05 - Split Stairs

______________________________________

Map 06 - The Lava Pits

______________________________________

Map 07 - Close Quarters

______________________________________

Map 08 - Cliffside

______________________________________

Map 09 - Front Lawn

______________________________________

Maps 10 ~ 18 [Old Friends]

For a playlist with maps completed, click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS7CYzATG6xA7lGNZVfCTxWmCFG31ERqC

Maps covered in this section:

10) Coastal Hallways
11) Secret Fortress
12) Mage Tower
13) Master's Courtyard
14) Sludge Shelves
15) Dragon Boneyard
16) The Basement
17) Colosseum
18) Order Temple

______________________________________

Map 10 - Coastal Hallways

______________________________________

Map 11 - Secret Fortress

______________________________________

Map 12 - Mage Tower

______________________________________

Map 13 - Master's Courtyard

______________________________________

Map 14 - Sludge Shelves

______________________________________

Map 15 - Dragon Boneyard

______________________________________

Map 16 - The Basement

______________________________________

Map 17 - Colosseum

______________________________________

Map 18 - Order Temple

Maps 19 ~ 23 [Drastic Steps]

For a playlist with maps completed, click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS7CYzATG6xA7lGNZVfCTxWmCFG31ERqC

Maps covered in this section:

19) Abandoned Passage
20) Aqueducts
21) Canyon Keep
22) Order Enclave
23) Slag Field

______________________________________

Drastic Steps:

Map 19 - Abandoned Passage

______________________________________

Map 20 - Aqueducts

______________________________________

Map 21 - Canyon Keep

______________________________________

Map 22 - Order Enclave

______________________________________

Map 23 - Slag Field

Maps 24 ~ 26 [Cold as Eyes]

For a playlist with maps completed, click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS7CYzATG6xA7lGNZVfCTxWmCFG31ERqC

Maps covered in this section:

24) Northern Rampart
25) Icebound Mine
26) Frostbitten

______________________________________

Cold as Eyes:

Map 24 - Northern Rampart

______________________________________

Map 25 - Icebound Mine

______________________________________

Map 24 - Frostbitten