Please remember to rate this guide so it can reach more people.

How up to date is this guide? (YYYY/MM/DD)

• First version of the guide released. 2021/07/23
  
• Updated with balance changes. 2021/08/11
  
• Updated with Cold as Eyes DLC info. 2021/11/11
  
• Updated with balance changes. v.1.1.1.0. 2022/01/20
  
• Updated with Tipping the Scales DLC info. v1.2.0.0 2022/04/07
  
• Updated with Trap price changes and then some. v1.2.1.0. 2023/06/05

It doesn't matter if you're a newcomer or a veteran to the series. Welcome to my guide.
____________________________________________

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.

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.

No. This guide is here to maybe give you pointers and let you try and see what could work best for you.

"I need help with [insert map name here]!"
"Where's the walkthrough with all maps?"

Refer to the "Walkthrough" section, the last one of the guide. I'll also 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

Only if any other DLCs or balancing patches are released.

Sometimes I change my opinion especially about traps and weapons and I will change descriptions at my own discretion.


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

Responsible for:

Guide creation, writing, management, researching, proofreading, image gatherering. Basically everything.

Guide creator, editor and updater, and someone pointlessly dedicated to this game. That's about it, I guess.

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://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=321647347 http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=505739685 http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482075212 http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=621968802 http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=729779266

1. 🔰 Hints and Tips:
   General hints, advice and pointers about several aspects or game modes, and some for co-op too.
   
   
2. 👑 Advanced Hints and Tips:
   Hints and Tips regarding 5-Skulling, Rift Lord difficulty. For those who want directions, but not straight up "how to" video guides.
   
   
3. 💬 Characters:
   The six heroes of Orcs Must Die! 3 explained. Their special abilities and health and mana detailed.
   
   
4. 📙 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.
   
   
5. 📒 War Machines:
   The meaner, oversized, traps used in War Scenarios. Sorted just like Traps.
   
   
6. ⚔️ Weapons:
   Your tools of trade, what you'll use to fight the Orc horde directly.
   
   
7. 💍 Trinkets:
   Small equipment which are not mandatory nor necessary, but can give you an edge in battle.
   
   
8. 📓 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.
   
   
9. 💡 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.
   
   
10. 📕 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.
    
    
11. 💯 Advanced Hints and Tips: Scramble Mode
    Small tidbits about Scramble Mode and some of its more unintuitive debuffs.
    
    
12. 👣 Rift Lord Walkthrough:
    How I beat maps here and there. Not a strict guide, but it can help you if you're stuck.

Be prepared:

Before we move to the main course of the guide (traps, weapons and trinkets) I'll leave some Hints and Tips here, and more about Rift Lord below.

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.

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.



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.

Some of these attacks are potent and you might be tempeted to spam it, but you can put yourself in a really bad situation if you do this. 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.

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.

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.

You can also quickly run back to the rift to patch yourself up too, although this can be more difficult in Rift Lord with the very limited time between waves.


When close enough to the rift you'll gain a powerful healing and a very small Mana regeneration boost.


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.


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

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 getting the Rift Rush effect-- they'll move faster and ignore anything that would aggro them (Decoys, Guardians) 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.

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

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.

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 difficult, 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.
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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.
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One of its best features is that it indicates which doors enemies will spawn from.

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.

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.
Gray doors will not spawn enemies from it.


Pay attention to each door.
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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.
_______________________________


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.

Getting 5 Skull, aka the Perfect Victory, in all maps demands practice and training.

________________________________________________________________

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.
________________________________________________________________

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 5 seconds to sell things once the last enemy in the wave dies.

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 to 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.

List of changes from Rift Lord to War Mage difficulty:

• Enemies have more Health and hit harder.
  
• Enemies are more numerous.
  
• Rift Points are cut in half.
  
• You only get 5 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 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.
________________________________________________________________

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 FIVE 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.

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.
________________________________________________________________

Enemies like Armored Ogres and Gnoll Hunters/Grenediers 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.
________________________________________________________________

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:

Ceiling Lasers and Briar Patches are perfect traps to get these pesky shields off the hands of the Orcs. Generally speaking traps that does constant damage, like the Gravity Pillar, also work wonders against shielded Orcs.

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.
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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.
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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 five 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.
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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.

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]

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?

"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.

"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.

"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 cancel the charge attack of Ogres, avoid the explosion of Dynamite Archers and even Cyclops Mage's homing projectile with it. Gnolls will also ignore you and head to the rift (and they don't take rift points away), which is particularly useful in late Endless matches.

At first glance Cygnus' ability seems nearly useless compared to others, but you can use it to get enemies off your back or even stay put to ambush a specific enemy/enemy group in the middle of a big fight.

"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, however this comes with the problem of having the lowest Mana pool.

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.

"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.

"Almost forgot how powerful I can be..."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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
  
• Saw Blade Launcher
  
• Spike Wall
  
• Wall Blades
  
• Wall Charger
  
• Window of Butterflies

Ceiling Traps

• Auto Ballista
  
• Ceiling Laser
  
• Ceiling Pounder
  
• Dart Spitter
  
• Gravity Pillar
  
• Haymaker
  
• Shock Zapper
  
• Snow Cannon
  
• Swinging Mace

DLC only

• Molten Gold
  
• Briar Patch

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

• Acid Geyser
  
• Barricade

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Cost: 600
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 in action.

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 very low and shouldn't be relied to kill enemies. The Acid Geysers should be used to keep enemies debuffed for your Physical traps and increase your combo counter.

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.

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Cost: 700, 650, 600, 500 (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 (+300 Coins).

Rerouting enemies is a very powerful strategy.

Barricade is perhaps the most unassuming traps of the game, but also one of the, if not the, most useful. They allow you to block the enemy's path or at least force enemies march a single, usually narrow, path making it much easier to deal with the waves.

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.

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.

Collateral damage is also a problem. Dynamite Archers and Gnoll Grenadiers also bring a lot of troubles since their attacks have a pretty big 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 marked enemies 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 (not by much mind you) which is good in maps where you know you'll be facing a ton of those pesky exploding enemies.

Unique 2 increase the size and price for the Barricades so they'll be like two Barricades side-by-side. You can save up some money, especially if you're intending to set a lot of Barricades in War Scenario maps.


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.

• Brimstone
  
• Confusion Flower
  
• Decoy

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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.
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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.
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Cost: 500
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 trap that will cause any aggressive enemy to attack it (about 4 to 5 minions). 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:

500 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).

• Flip Trap
  
• Floor Scorcher
  
• Guardian Archer

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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.
_______________________________

Cost: 750
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.

Take note that the damage of this trap is very low, a far cry from its glory days in the previous game, and it's (probably) meant to be a complementary trap, or combo incrementer. 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.
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Cost: 1000
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. Revives faster if downed.
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, precise and deals a respectable amount of damage, especially with the Fire upgrade.

They've received an important buff in v1.2.0.0 giving them the ability to revive on their own. This allows you to set them in the front lines without having to worry about babysitting them. However as of update v1.2.1.0 their price was """slightly""" changed from 600 to 1000.

If you set them near Barricades be always careful with collateral damage that Dynamite Archers, Sappers and Gnoll Grenediers can cause, or crossfire from Orc Archers or Mages since they can hit your Barricades on uneven terrain.

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

• Orc Archers/Tuatara Rangers (usually will have a ton of backup to unintentionally tank them)
  
• Dynamite Archers (very high damage in a wide area, can easily kill several Archers even with Health regen)
  
• Kobold Sappers/Firelings (they'll prioritize Guardians as well)
  
• Cyclops Mages (high damage homing attack that outrange Archers)
  
• Gnolls/Tuatara Assassins (they ignore Barricades and specifically target players and Guardians)

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. This upgrade also helps them get back on their feet quicker if they get downed.

Unique 2 is good to deal with Physical resistant enemies (and there's a lot of them), 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.



As of patch 1.2 Archers will revive like War Guardians if brought down.



Guardian Archers are pretty fragile, but in numbers can be a good helping hand.


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

• Rip Saw
  
• Spike Trap
  
• Tar Trap

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Cost: 700
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.
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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 isn't too bad for its price.

The Spike Trap is a simple, single firing trap that will activate when 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.

The damage dealt by this trap is moderate, as expected from its cheap price, but keep in mind that the Spike Trap only hits once, so it might be much less effective on its own in Rift Lord difficulty where Orcs bring shields to tank the first hit.

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

The Unique upgrades gives the Spike Trap an indirect, but important, damage boost since very few enemies are resistant to Lightning or Arcane.

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 the damage it does to Heavy Orcs, Ogres and Trolls isn't negligible (the mini stun is also a bonus).

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.
_______________________________

Cost: 450
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.

Tar synergies well with the vast majority of traps in the game.

Tar is an old friend and something that newcomers will love and veterans will respect due to its sheer usefulness. Just 50 coins shy of its pricing in its debut game-- after almost 3 years it's finally (almost) back to what it was meant to be.

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.

Friendly Warning:

While it's tempting to fill the map with Tar remember that too much of it can severely affect your Par Time if you're aiming for 5-Skulls.

Unique 1 is good if you want to save some money. The enemies will remain slowed down for approximately one Tar trap worth of distance - one full regular trap square size - 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 Bracers, 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.

• Arrow Wall
  
• Arcane Dragon
  
• Boom Barrel Dispenser

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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.

Another returning old acquaintance, 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 which can diminish its damage potential.

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.
_______________________________

Cost: 800
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 this trap is has a somewhat high price.

The firing pattern of this trap 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 more effective.

Unique 1 gives it a bounce effect. If you're intending to use it you'll have a hard time finding good places for it since the developers apparently bear an innate hatred towards this trap's bounce effect. But if done correctly it's usually worth the trouble especially after patch 1.2.1.0 gave it a decent damage buff.

Unique 2 increases the Arcane debuff (15% extra elemental damage). But the Arcane Dragon's slow fire rate and price makes this upgrade rather impractical compared to the bounce one. A lowered cooldown would've been much more useful.


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.

_______________________________

Cost: 900, 850, 700, 750
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.

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.


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


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.


Explosive chain reaction.

• Grinder
  
• Deep Freeze
  
• Push Trap
  
• Saw Blade Launcher

_______________________________

Cost: 900
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.
_______________________________

Cost: 800
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.

Corners with Barricades are usually good places to place this 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 pricey standing at 800 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.

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


The Acid version of Deep Freeze.
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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.
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Cost: 650
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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Some setups for Saw Blade Launchers.

• Spike Wall
  
• Wall Blades
  
• Wall Charger
  
• Window of Butterflies

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Cost: 650
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).

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.
_______________________________

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.
_______________________________

Cost: 900
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.
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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.

• Auto Ballista
  
• Ceiling Laser
  
• Ceiling Pounder

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

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.

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.

Tips:

The Auto Ballista is good trap to set after your killzone to catch anything that may get past it. Consider setting a few past your killzone to deal with any stragglers or survivors.

However take extra care with placement as this trap can waste its shot firing at walls or obstacles.

This trap's range allows it to trigger even in very high ceilings.
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Cost: 900, 850, 800, 750
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 one of the very rare traps that's constantly active and will never need to recharge, like Tar. The default trap has three laser lines and deals damage to whatever tries to go under it. The caveat here is that its damage output is passable at best and you need many of them or a very good setup to truly shine.

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.

Barricade funneling is very useful to maximize the destructive potential of this trap.
_______________________________

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
  
• Gravity Pillar
  
• Haymaker

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Cost: 800
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 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.

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.

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 doubles the active time of the Dart Spitter. Do keep in mind that a lot of tough enemies are resistant to Physical damage, so even with that the damage may not be that spectacular.

Tip:

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

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


The checkerboard pattern on the ceiling with traps like Gravity Pillar and Shock Zapper makes for a mean crowd control trap combo as well.
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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).

The Gravity Well can lift a large number of enemies making it a good crowd control trap.

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. There's also no apparent limit to how many enemies it can lift, so it works particularly well with Barricade funneling.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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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 ceiling trap that will bash up to Heavy (not Very Heavy) weight enemies around, but it has low range activation and requires low ceilings to work.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• Shock Zapper
  
• Snow Cannon
  
• Swinging Mace

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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, 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 while to recharge.

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.

Tip:

Be careful if too many Runner/Sapper enemies attack in thick groups. The Shock Zapper has a second or two pause between each electric blast and if said enemies attack grouped together like that there's a possibility of them slipping by one or two Shock Zappers.

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).
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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 with Ice/Acid damage over a wide arc once it's activated. Its vertical height trigger is massive, on par with the Auto Ballista, something that isn't 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 Cannons 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. It also slightly increases its damage, something that isn't told in its description.

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.
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Cost: 1000
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.

Take note that 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 won't hit every enemy wall-to-wall and those walking closer to the walls, far from the center, will probably get past it unharmed.

Unique 1 lowers the cooldown of this trap making the mace swing slightly faster. Keep in mind its damage will be low against Ogres and anything resistant to Physical damage (i.e: most enemies in the regular campaign).

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.


Barricades go well with the Swinging Mace.

• Molten Gold
  
• Briar Patch

________________________________________________________________

Cost: 500
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: 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. Keep in mind that the effect is short lived and lasts for about 3 seconds only.

The Molten Gold also deals a bit of damage, on its own this damage is 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.

Tip:

Crowd control is always welcome but even more important to get the most out of Molten Gold. Using trinkets like Jar of Ghosts can help in keeping enemies under this trap.

The increased height activation of this trap makes the Molten Gold another good option for high ceilings.


The profitable results of the Molten Gold.
_____________________________________

Cost: 1000
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls to buy: Tipping the Scales DLC
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 5, 5
Unique: 5 — 5

Condition to unlock Uniques: Make the trap grow 30 times.

Unique 1: Increases damage.
Unique 2: Reduce cost (850 coins).

An alternative to Tar. On the long run, if properly set, and cared for, much more economical too.

The Briar Patch is a trap that will slow down enemies that step on it just like Tar. Its slowing effect is weaker (20% vs Tar's 40%) and it does come at the very high cost of 1000 coins that can be reduced to 850 with the right upgrade.

Like the Ceiling Laser this trap can be useful to get the shields off Orc hands since it will never have to cooldown or reload.

How does it grow?

This trap will grow and create more patches the more it damages enemies passing through it, its damage however is low and should not be relied to kill anything stronger than Runners or Sappers type of enemies.


The patches marked with red "X" will never grow. The other patches can grow if they cause enough damage. Where they'll grow to is random, however.

Another warning when using the Briar Patch:

Briar Patch needs a full regular floor trap size to grow to, they cannot grow on 1x1 spaces. It also cannot grow from slopes to straight ground and vice-versa.

Tips:

The Wind Belt's primary, Crossbow, or Stone Staff secondary, Jar of Ghosts, or crowd control traps, like Gravity Well and Shock Zapper, are perfect to keep enemies on the Briar Patch to make it grow faster.

Also remember that the patch MUST have ground, one trap worth of size, to grow. If the patch is already occupied it will not grow. Only the "first" or "last" patch can grow.

As it is the norm with almost every trap in the game the Briar Patch works well with Barricades since it will "guide" its growth (and due to its price you won't be able to set too many of them anyway).

Unique 1 increases the damage of the Briar Patch which can make it grow and spread faster.

Unique 2 reduces the cost to 850 coins. Still expensive and not very useful given you might need only one to three for the entire map most of times, but if you feel you need the extra coins anyway, this upgrade is for you.


Briar Patches can be useful in small or big maps if set correctly.

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

• Bowling Boulder
  
• Giant Flip Trap
  
• Giant Killer Beehive Tree

Part 2

• Snow Blower
  
• Tornado in a Box
  
• War Outpost

Part 3 {Mountables}

• Mega Boom Barrel Launcher
  
• Rapid Fire Ballista

Part 4 {Guardians}

• Bank of Archers
  
• Knight
  
• Priestess

• Bowling Boulder
  
• Giant Flip Trap
  
• Giant Killer Beehive Tree

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Cost: 1200
Damage Type: Physical

Skulls for Uniques: 7 — 7

Condition to unlock Uniques: Deal 10.000 damage.

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

Note:

Must be manually triggered.

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.
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Cost: 1000
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.
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Cost: 2000 | 1650 (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.

• Snow Blower
  
• Tornado in a Box
  
• War Outpost

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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.
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Cost: 2400
Damage Type: Physical (with Unique 1) | Ice (with Unique 2; no actual damage Freeze enemies only)

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.
_______________________________

Skulls for Uniques: 6 — 6

Condition to unlock Uniques:

Unique 1: Cost reduced to 650 (default: 1000)
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.

• Mega Boom Barrel Launcher
  
• Rapid Fire Ballista

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Cost: 2200
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).
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Cost: 2000
Damage Type: Physical

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.

• Bank of Archers
  
• Knight
  
• Priestess

_______________________________

Cost: 2750
Damage Type: Physical | Fire (with Unique 1)

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.

Note:

As of patch 1.2 every Archer in the Bank of Archers will not vanish and will revive if they take too much damage.

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.
_______________________________

Cost: 3600
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.


A wounded Knight recovering.
_______________________________

Cost: 3000
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 any Guardian the Priestess will not fade if they fall in battle, they'll 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.

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.

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.

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 is one of the best ways to get rid of the beefier ones quickly.


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
  
• Chain Lightning Staff

Part 5

• Elven Shortswords
  
• Broadsword
  
• Arcane Staff

DLC only:

• Flame Thrower
  
• Hand Gatling

• Blunderbuss
  
• Magic Longbow
  
• Bladestaff

_______________________________

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. 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.

Tips:

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.

The freezing bomb secondary.
_______________________________

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 its rate of fire is 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 a projectile that is recoilless and has no accucary loss. Good for those who value precision. It will also pierce smaller enemies as well.

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. The secondary will also knock enemies off their feet (not Ogres, though) and does a decent amount of damage-- the closer you are to the target the bigger the damage will be. The secondary CANNOT score Headshots, however.

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.
_______________________________

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.

• Ice Amulet
  
• Flame Bracers
  
• Wind Belt

_______________________________

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. Keep in mind that while the radius is decent this is also by far the attack that uses the most mana in the game.

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. Its duration is short and the damage isn't very good, so it's hardly worth considering how much mana you'll use up.



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

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. The area of effect is 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 larger doors the Orcs break through (about 3 regular traps, Tar for example, side-by-side) which is a rather large area and a meek extra second to justify its description.

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 size comparison: regular size (right) and with Unique 2, increased size (left).
_______________________________

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.

The primary attack doesn't deal a lot of damage on its own, and it doesn't affect very heavy enemies like Ogres, Trolls or Cyclops mages. The range is also rather short, so you have to get pretty close to enemies to hit them.

You can use the Wind Belt's primary attack to push enemies into pits or into the gigantic grinders in certain maps, or back to the beginning of your trap course.

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 regular Elemental or a Gnoll and throw them away into a pit.


The Wind Belt can be used to keep enemies in your killzones as well.

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 can be left on the ground long 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.

• Dwarven Warhammer
  
• Stone Staff
  
• Alchemist Satchel

_______________________________

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.

_______________________________

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. 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.

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 have melee weapons, or traps, like Grinders, 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.

Tip:

Just like Freezing, Petrifying make enemies take extra Physical damage.

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


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

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 at all.

The advent of the Hand Gatling and its manaless Acid primary attack made this weapon even more useless than it was before.

• Crossbow
  
• Scepter of Domination
  
• Chain Lightning Staff

_______________________________

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.

A returning weapon from the first two games, however now you don't have to wait every time you shoot to get consecutive Headshots. Crossbow is a versatile weapon with fast firing rate and crowd control capability with its secondary.

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, however unlike that weapon the Crossbow will suffer from accuracy loss on consecutive shots.

You can zoom in with this weapon (default button being Middle Mouse Button). While your aim is focused the fire rate will be decreased, but in return the accuracy will not drop, a great feature to hit far away enemies with precision.

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 and 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. This small damage increase does stack with Freeze and Petrify effects, however.

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.
_______________________________

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.

A returning weapon from the previous game. 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.

This weapon also posses a 3-level charge attack with the maximum charge level that will ragdoll light and medium weight enemies. The level 2 charge does almost the same damage as the level 3.

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.

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

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 large chunk of Mana. Charmed enemies will explode if they die fighting for you.

Tips for Charm:

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.

_______________________________

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 (it doesn't).

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.

• Elven Shortswords
  
• Broadsword
  
• Arcane Staff

_______________________________

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.

A fast melee weapon with shorter range than the Bladestaff. Its damage potential is decent, but it lacks the versatility of other melee weapons.

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 or even Heavy Orcs.

The secondary attack is a 3-level charge twin slash sword beam that will pierce enemies, however even fully charged this move deals very low damage and is mostly here as a last resort to kill Sappers or finish off a far away (and heavily wounded) enemy. The damage from the secondary attack, even when fully charged, is pitiful and it uses a lot of Mana which would be best spent on anything else.

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 increasing its damage and also helping in stunlocking most lighter foes.

Unique 2 adds Bleed to the secondary, but other than using it for combos there isn't much use for this upgrade.
_______________________________

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.
_______________________________

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, but it also means projectiles falling farther away making them even more unreliable at killing things.

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

• Flame Thrower
  
• Hand Gatling

_______________________________

Skulls to buy: 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 one of the few elemental weapons that can score headshots on enemies while having a manaless primary attack. Since this weapon deals Fire damage it goes without saying that it's useless against Hellbats and quasi-useless against the Fire Fiends.

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, but the projectiles are rather slow.

The secondary roasts enemies with a constant jet, of short-ranged stream of fire. One of the more interesting aspects of the secondary is that if you keep using it the secondary will eventually spew an even more potent stream 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 before they reach your traps.

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.



The secondary is a good option to spread the burning ailment to groups of enemies.
______________________________

Skulls to buy: Tipping the Scales DLC
Skulls to upgrade: 5, 5, 5
Unique 5 — 5

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

Condition to unlock Uniques: Kill 400 enemies.

Unique 1: Primary deals Acid damage.
Unique 2: Secondary gets area of effect damage.

Note:

* You can zoom in with this weapon.
* You may use the secondary attack while firing the primary.

Left: Primary fire (with Acid) - Right: Secondary fire

The Hand Gatling it a good weapon against the Tuatara since its rapid fire will never be countered by the damage cap protection they have.

Its primary fire is an extremely fast firing attack, but loses accuracy quickly if you hold down the attack button. Its damage is decent but even so Physical resistant enemies can take a while to kill.

The secondary spreads a handful of caltrops around a small area. The damage isn't high and the caltrops are one-time damage things and they expire if you let them around for too long. Honestly, it feels like a waste of mana.

Unique 1 gives this weapon the Acid element which allows you to spread the Melt debuff freely rendering the Alchemist Satchel even more useless than it was before. It is also a gift to combo makers since Acid traps are either expensive or clunky (sometimes both). It's also great to go along most weapons, especially melee ones, as well.

Unique 2 focuses on the secondary, but this unique is not nearly worth compared to the utility and usefulness of the other upgrade.

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.


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.

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.

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.

Part 1

• Healing Trinket
  
• Mana Rage Trinket
  
• Trap Reset Trinket

Part 2

• Jar of Ghosts
  
• Empty Rift Trinket

Part 3

• Freedom Trinket
  
• Ring of Storms

DLC only:

• Cyclopean Gaze
  
• Reptilian Carapace

• Healing Trinket
  
• Mana Rage Trinket
  
• Trap Reset 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.

_______________________________

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.

_______________________________

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 only set by the user when activated.
Special: Lowers trinket cooldown (1.50 minutes)

Cooldown: Long. 2 minutes.

Left: Trap Reset Trinket equipped - Right: Trap Reset Trinket activated.

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 even with the matching Unique upgrade the cooldown reduction will be marginal, it won't make anything like all traps fire every second.

Unique 1 enhances its passive a little more, but as I just mentioned, don't expect traps firing every second, the reload time reduction is, at most, around 20%.

Unique 2 helps preserving Barricades against Kobold Sappers and Firelings if you don't let them blow the Barricades completely, it's also good in case enemies accidentally hit the Barricades, something that happens irritatingly often with the glitched hitbox of Archer's arrows.

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.


This trinket will also reset the hanging bombs on certain levels like Cliffside and Secret Fortress.

• Jar of Ghosts
  
• Empty Rift Trinket

_______________________________

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 all enemies around a small area 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.

Left: Jar of Ghosts equipped - Right: Spectral image active.


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.

This is 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.

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 may seem odd at first, but it focuses heavily on the counterattack passive 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 fighting with melee weapons.
_______________________________

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.

Left: Empty Rift Trinket equipped - Right: Trinket activated.

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.

• Freedom Trinket
  
• Ring of Storms

_______________________________

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.

Left: Freedom Trinket equipped - Right: Trinket activated.

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.
_______________________________

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 can be an option to help you deal with dangerous enemies.

• Cyclopean Gaze
  
• Reptilian Carapace

_______________________________

Skulls to buy: 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.

Left: Cyclopean Gaze equipped - Right: Trinket in use, the rune will fade until it deactivates on its own.


The petrifying counterattack.

The Cyclopean Gaze is 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, the damage is very low and won't bruise even Heavy Orcs, let alone bigger enemies.


The explosion caused by the Special upgrade after deactivating the active effect from the trinket.
______________________________

Skulls to buy: Tipping the Scales DLC
Skulls to Unique: 7 — 7
Special: 10

Condition to unlock Upgrades: Block 100 projectiles with the barrier.

Unique 1: Increases barrier duration (from 12 to 16 seconds)
Unique 2: Barrier moves with player.
Special: Increases defense even more.

Cooldown: Extremely Short. 25 seconds.

Left: Repitilian Carapace equipped - Right: Barrier activated.

This is a trinket that can be either extremely useful or extremely useless depending on your playstyle.

Its active effect creates a barrier for 12 seconds that blocks ranged attacks including from Dynamite Archers, Gnoll Grenadiers, flying enemies and Cyclops Mesmerizers, even if you're close to the edges of the barrier the area of effect will not hurt you. But enemies can still invade the barrier and melee attacking ones won't be affected by it in any way.

Warning:

Keep in mind that enemies inside the bubble can still shoot you and this does not block the attack of Fire Fiend Overlords.

Its passive effect is also very good, especially with the Special Upgrade. You gain more defense, but unlike most passive buffs in this game this is not a nominal amount-- it's a very high bonus that, with the right gear, turns you into a powerful tank that will be VERY difficult to bring down.

Needless to say this trinket goes very well with melee weapons, especially the Bladestaff and Broadsword that have life stealing. Even the Elven Shortswords can be not completely useless if you bring the Healing Trinket along too.

Unique 1 makes the barrier last longer (4 seconds more) which helps a bit. You can also leave the barrier protecting your Guardian Archers for longer too. Great for stationary defenders.

Unique 2 on the other hand can be useful if you tend to move a lot.


This trinket can useful in co-op allowing you to tank enemies for your partner and shield them from projectiles with the active effect.

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.

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.

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.

Good for you, buddy.

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.

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]

Weapons:

* Crossbow (Headshot kills explode enemies)
* Flame Bracers (Primary deals increased damage)
* Ice Amulet (Freezes enemies longer)

Trinkets (suggestion):

* Mana Rage Trinket (Increased max Mana)

This time one does not cancel the other.

+ Balanced damage-wise. Kills a bit of everything well enough from any range.
+ Build that is safe since you'll be fighting from very long ranges.

- Takes a bit of practice to use effectively.
- Can be very Mana consuming.

A build focused on dealing with most types of enemies at early waves.

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 is the small trash clean up tool. Using either properly without spamming too much can get rid of small crowds of Orcs early on and even the big ones with proper trap setups.

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. Make sure to use it from a distance aiming at lines or even firing while standing at sidelines to hit as many enemies as possible.

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 least recommended weapons.

Using the loadout to fight the Cyclopeans in Frostbitten. Killing enemies fast and controlling the bigger ones is necessary when fighting without Barricades.

Weapons:

* Blunderbuss (Secondary freezes enemies)
* Wind Belt (Primary throw enemies farther)
* Stone Staff (Increased range on secondary)

For when you want to get up close and personal. Not too much, though.

Weapons:

* Blunderbuss (Secondary freezes enemies)
* Wind Belt (Primary throw enemies farther)

Simpler variant.

+ Easy to use and learn.
+ Excellent crowd control from small to big enemies.
+ Stone Staff is very useful against flying enemies.

- Long ranged enemies like Orc Archers and Cyclops Mages can be annoying.
- Does not kill big crowds quickly on its own.

A simple build that is very focused on keeping you alive and fighting at early waves until you get money to set your defenses up.

Blunderbuss is the main choice for primary weapon due to its medium range which synergies well with the Stone Staff and Wind Belt-- both weapons that need you to be closer to enemies to affect them. The freezing bomb secondary uses less Mana than the Stone Staff's secondary but affects a very small area and should be used to deal with lone Ogres, Trolls or Gnolls.

Wind Belt is used to stall crowds of enemies up to heavy (not very heavy) weight. Remember that it will also knock enemies like regular Elementals (not Lords) and Gnolls too and it's good to swat Sappers and Firelings away too.

Another good reminder is that airborne enemies take double damage and with the Blunderbuss your aim doesn't need to be pinpoint to cause a lot of damage against enemies.

The Stone Staff is optional, but very good and can be used against both light and heavy enemies effectively (also being the best weapon against flyers in the game), its primary fire being far more accurate can be useful to pick off enemies from out of the Blunderbuss' range.

Take note that the Stone Staff secondary uses a fairly high amount of mana, so choose between the Wind Belt or even the Blunderbuss' freezing secondary according to the situation - vs. crowds of small enemies and if said crowd has big enemies/flyers in it - to conserve your mana.

Putting the loadout to use in Sand Sea Castle.

Weapons:

* Crossbow (Enemies Stunned by secondary takes extra damage)
* Bladestaff (Primary attack heals on hit)

The Master's legacy still shines on.

+ Versatile for fighting at long distances or up close.
+ Good crowd control for small and big enemies.
+ Bladestaff heals up without needing of potions or falling back to the rift.

- Does not take out Armored Ogres and Mountain Trolls quickly on its own.

A deceptively simple build that's extremely versatile in terms of crowd control.

Crossbow is used to deal with enemies from afar or at medium ranges (remember that you can also zoom in for a controlled, albeit slower, fire rate).

The stunning secondary of the Crossbow can also be used to stall even large crowds of enemies and keep the pressure on enemies that cannot be knocked over by the Bladestaff.

The Bladestaff itself is used to deal with the early mobs of Orcs that can cause problems and can be difficult to deal with until you get a few traps to help you. The primary will keep you alive as long as you don't push yourself TOO hard as well.

Using the secondary attack of the Bladestaff's will knock enemies off their feet (not Very Heavy ones, though) and as long as you don't spam it you'll be able to easily handle even the largest crowds of enemies.

In Colosseum. Showing its uses to control the early waves and picking off dangerous enemies on late waves.

Weapons:

* Bladestaff (Primary attack heals on hit)
* Flame Bracers (Primary deals increased damage)

Trinkets:

* Reptilian Carapace (any Unique)
* Jar of Ghosts (Fear counterattack affects surrounding enemies)

Variant 1: Fear and Fire.

Weapons:

* Bladestaff (Primary attack heals on hit)
* Hand Gatling (Acid damage on primary)
* Stone Staff (any)

Trinkets:

* Reptilian Carapace (any Unique)

Alternative to Stone Staff:

* Cyclopean Gaze (Counterattack always petrify enemies)

Variant 2: Melt and Petrify.

Other Trinket suggestion:

* Healing Trinket (Faster health regeneration)

+ Excellent for tanking and stalling large groups of enemies.
+ Works well with any trap setup.
+ Versatile and great to help in co-op.

- Requires the "Tipping the Scales DLC" to work.
- Does not kill very heavy threats like Armored Ogres and Mountain Trolls quickly on its own.
- Melee centered build. Without the Stone Staff it's not recommended for maps with flying enemies.

A melee build that may look odd at first, but it deals with big crowds of enemies easily.

Bladestaff is my main choice of weapon due to its versatility: it deals good damage and hits a decently large area with the primary (also healing you with the proper upgrade) and you can knock enemies up to heavy weight off their feet with the secondary.

Variant 1 is more oriented towards crowds of enemies with the Jar of Ghosts counterattack being able to stall even big crowds of enemies you can face in War Scenario maps. The Flame Bracers helps in killing pesky Archers and wear down Ogres and Trolls quicker.

Variant 2 is focused on more singular threats and the defense debuffs from Petrifying and Melt stack, so it can help you kill bigger threats quicker. The Hand Gatling's Acid damage can also be used to spread the Melt debuff so other traps, and your co-op partner, does more damage against them.

You can swap the Cyclopean Gaze for the Stone Staff as well. Any upgrade helps and the "launch enemies after secondary" further increases damage since airborne enemies take twice as much damage.

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
Big, big maybe here. The Shortswords' damage output is higher, but not high enough to be worth trading in my opinion. Too much risk for little return.

Dwarven Warhammer?
No. The primary swings too slowly and the damage output is not nearly worthy to deal with crowds.

Showing the strengths of this build in Cliffside. Because you need to have something to deal with four Mountain Trolls at Wave 1.

A variant with Healing Trinket instead of Jar of Ghosts in Untrained Grounds. Still works well despite the lack of any additional trinkets.

Weapons:

* Blunderbuss (secondary is a freezing bomb)
* Scepter of Domination (Charm lasts longer)

Maximilian and Gabriella's personal weapons make a powerful combination. Coincidence?

Other weapon build suggestion:

* Bladestaff (Primary attack heals on hit)
* Scepter of Domination (Charm lasts longer)

Tradition from the first and second games together in the third.

+ Good damage potential.
+ Covers medium and long ranges.

- 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.

This is a 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).

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 too, so it's another good map to showcase how this loadout works.

Weapons:

* Magic Longbow (Primary causes Bleed)
* Flame Bracers (Primary deals increased damage)

Bleed and burn them.

Weapons:

* Magic Longbow (Primary causes Bleed)
* Flame Bracers (Primary deals increased damage)
* Wind Belt (Primary throw enemies farther)

Bleed, burn and blow them away.

Weapons:

* Magic Longbow (Primary causes Bleed)
* Flame Thrower (Primary burn enemies longer)

Flame Thrower variant

+ Bleed and Burn helps a lot with trap damage and even combos.
+ Good damage spread at safe distances.
+ Mana friendly as long as you don't spam mana consuming attacks.

- Without Wind Belt, Fire Lords will be dangerous since neither weapon can quickly handle the Firelings.
- Loses a lot of effectiveness if too many Fire resistant/immune enemies are in the map.

A simple-looking weapon combination with the Magic Longbow.

The Magic Longbow's primary deals decent damage and causes Bleed which helps killing smaller enemies in fewer shots, the Bleed damage adds up nicely with the Burn from either second weapon (Flame Bracers or Flame Thrower).

If you have the Tipping the Scales DLC you'll have access to the Flame Thrower as well. It's a weapon that can help you spread the Burn quickly with its secondary and the primary is very useful to quickly get rid of Ogres, Trolls and Elementals (not Fire Elementals, though).

The biggest problem here is the complete lack of crowd control weapons, so you need to be aggressive and careful not to lose control of the situation, especially during early waves.

Needless to say this build works pretty well with the Tar Trap with Fire Damage Upgrade.

Flame Bracers variant. Fighting in Sand Sea Castle where damage over time helps a lot against the Tuatara.

Flame Thrower variant. In Close Quarters where early waves can be a bit chaotic.

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.

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.

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.

• Tar or Briar Patch
  
• Shock Zapper, Gravity Pillar or Ceiling Laser
  
• Ice Dart Spitter
  
• Confusion Flower, Window of Butterflies, Guardian Archer, Spike Trap or Ice Rip Saw
  
• Fire Arrow Wall, Deep Freeze or Wall Charger

Some suggestions. Mix up in any way you like/need it.

A simple idea that focuses on most types of damage and can create killzones that will, most of times, take care of themselves. It has balanced damage types and is fairly versatile against all types of enemies, from Orcs to Cyclopses to Tuataras.

Tar is one of the best options to slow enemies and keep them under pressure. Briar Patch is a good alternative if you're willing to stall enemies on it to make it grow.

The Ice Dart Spitter with Shock Zappers or Gravity Pillars are the main stars of this trap setup and together, with some help of Confusion Flowers and Window of Butterflies or even Guardian Archers they can take care of big groups of enemies of all types.

Gravity Pillars, Shock Zappers or even Ceiling Lasers are the top choices against Runner-type enemies like Kobolds Runners, Fire Fiend Runners and Earthlings.

Gravity Pillar is great against crowd of small enemies, but bigger threats like Ogres and Trolls can trigger it prematurely, so you can mix it up with Shock Zappers for maxed efficiency.

Fire Arrow Walls are here to give this setup a little more oomph to kill problematic targets like Armored Ogres and Mountain Trolls too. It can be replaced by Wall Chargers or Deep Freezes if you're going to deal with Fire Fiends.

Setups:

Gravity Pillar, Shock Zapper, Deep Freeze, Fire Guardian Archer.


Gravity Pillar, Ice Dart Spitter, Fire Arrow Wall and Confusion Flower.

In Sand Sea Castle with three separate killzones.

In Order Enclave with three separate killzones as well. One of them being "open boxed".

• Ceiling Laser
  
• Lightning Spike Trap
  
• Wall Charger
  
• Tar Trap
  
• Ice Dart Spitter
  
• Confusion Flower

A trap loadout focused on Lightning damage.

Lightning is an element that isn't resisted by most enemies and the selection of traps meant to deal damage and keep them under pressure.

The Ceiling Laser or Shock Zapper are here to electrify enemies so the Wall Chargers, with the "electrified enemies take more damage, will deal with the heavier enemies. They are also adept at catching Runner enemies as well.

The Lightning Spike Trap complements the setup pretty well and also electrify enemies. Patch 1.2.1.0 buffed their damage which makes them pretty good at softening anything up to Ogres and Trolls.

Ice Dart Spitter and Tar together are always two very good crowd control traps and will make sure nothing blazes through the setup and will make sure they'll take as much damage as possible.

Setups:

Setup in one of the doors in Slag Field.


Setup in Cliffside (east).



Setups in Close Quarters.

Two killzones in Slag Field.

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.

• Shock Zapper or Gravity Pillar
  
• Ice Dart Spitter
  
• Guardian Archer
  
• Tar or Briar Patch
  
• Fire Arrow Wall or Deep Freeze
  
• Arcane Brimstone, Ice Rip Saw, Spike Trap

This trap loadout is balanced to counter most type of enemies, be them light or heavy.

The mixture of Shock Zapper/Gravity Pillar and Ice Dart Spitter is the main star of this build, together they are good crowd control traps that can handle most crowd of enemies with ease.

Fire Arrow Walls or Deep Freezes are essential to be through the map to spread damage as well.

Guardian Archers with Health Regen will resurrect faster (30 seconds), this can be good to set them near enemy lines so they'll stall enemies as, when in sufficient numbers, if one or two falls the others might be able to hold on until they get back up.

Fire Guardian Archers will deal a lot more damage but will revive slower (60 seconds) and they'll be useless against Fire Fiends or Hellbats. The slow resurrection also makes them much less efficient at stalling and you should place them farther away from harm.

Setups:

Make sure to set traps like Confusion Flowers, Gravity Pillars, Ice Dart Spitters and Fire Arrow Walls to protect your Archers and help them keep enemies under pressure.

• Ceiling Laser
  
• Boom Barrel Dispenser
  
• Ice Dart Spitter
  
• Deep Freeze
  
• Tar or Briar Patch

A set of traps meant to be used without the need of Barricade funneling.

The Ceiling Laser is meant to be set at the start of the trap course to take the shield from the Orcs in Rift Lord difficulty. It can be also used to deal with Sappers and Runners since none of the other traps can reliably kill them.

Tar or Briar Patch is the trap used to group enemies together so the Boom Barrel Dispensers will hit as many as they can.

The main damage will be dealt by the Boom Barrel Dispensers while the Deep Freeze and Ice Dart Spitters will hold enemies in place.

While these traps deals with large crowds of heavy and light enemies it's also prone to letting some leakers survive and some enemies, especially Trolls and Mountain Trolls can survive it.

Setups:

Two examples in Slag Field.

Slag Field is a pretty annoying map, but good to stress test your trap setups.

• Arcane Dragon
  
• Ceiling Laser or Shock Zapper
  
• Ice Dart Spitter
  
• Tar or Briar Patch
  
• Deep Freeze or Fire Arrow Wall

This set of traps is focused on the destructive power of Arcane Dragon's bounce effect. While it's not easy to set them due to most maps being made specifically to spite the bounce whenever you can set them it's worth the trouble.

Every other trap is meant to complement the damage debuff caused by Arcane effect (+15% elemental damage) and keep enemies under pressure with the Ice Dart Spitter and Shock Zappers being excellent choices.

The Fire Arrow Wall and Deep Freezes are there to balance out the elemental damage in case you need more power to deal with other enemies. Depending on how many weapons and trinkets you like to bring you can also add Brimstone and Spike Traps to the mix as well.

Setups:

Some setups with Ceiling Lasers and Shock Zappers.