On most danger 5 runs you will need some sort of healing, and damage reduction to go pass wave 18, 20, and the boss wave. Also most characters will need some damage that can kill most of the enemies up to wave 20. (For money and more importantly experience)

My method of healing was mainly life steal + weapons that are fast and hit multiple times.
Hp regen is really slow compared to other healing, mostly I just dumped it.
On some characters that cannot work well with life steal I mostly healed with luck + hp from consumables + tree combinations.

Here are some examples for how I cleared D5.



Soldier : Run won with lifesteal, attack speed, and piercing. For soldier you can walk while shooting by clicking on your keyboard in quick successions.


Masochist : Picked medical scissors and later on replaced with blades for lifesteal. One of the easy characters.



Engineer : Simple, pick all the turrets you can, especially the medical turrets are very good for healing.


Generalist : Was the hardest character for me.
His ability is most times just a penalty.
You can see on the image that my final stats were not that high compared to other characters on clear. but I did get enough healing from the cactus + slingshot weapons.



Loud : More enemies = more loot. OP slingshot. easy win.


Doctor : Only picked scissors until I had 4normal and 2 blue. -> After that only pick the blades because they are much better then scissors. A blue blade > red scissor



Demon : Use almost all your health in turn 1,2,3 for items before inflation kicks in. Early harvesting, luck, etc will carry you throughout the game.


Well-rounded : Cleared with slingshot. Started with the stick and changed to slingshot in the shop after round 1. Stick, knife, and shotgun are a good choice for starting weapon.



Knight : 34 armor, 60% evade = win for almost any character.


One-handed : Was a bit hard for me. Start with ethereal axe -> change to op weapon that comes along in the later stages. Lightning sword had the best results for me.




Entrepreneur : Easy run. He has a very good efficiency in harvesting. Recommend using 1~2 fists for getting the small mobs for more exp, and money along with harvest.




Crazy : Crazy was good because knife is a good weapon. It scales well on combination. Red knife has a high crit damage which will enable you to wipe each boss in 5~10 seconds.


Ranger : Ranger is good with crossbow and gun weapons. Crossbow was not bad for damage, piercing and lifesteal, but not that good either.



Hunter : Similar to ranger. Better on crossbows.


Mutant : Again I start with stick -> change to slingshot the moment I see one in the 1st shop after round 1. (You have to sell stick, or any other weapon for this to work because the early rounds are likely to give you what you have in your hands.)



Artificer : Planks did not work for me.. Start with Shredder and changed to grenade launcher later on. Was fun to see explosive weapons work.


Brawler : Fist is good. Dodge bonus from unarmed is nice.



Farmer : Full harvesting worked way better than kill + harvest build. Early economy items (piggy bank, crown) made the run much much easier.


Gladiator : Precise weapons have more usable unique weapons than other types of weapon in my opinion.