If you haven’t been playing world of Van Helsing: Deathtrap yet, then shame on you. Seriously, this is a great game and wonderfully done. Now one thing that is for certain is that this game is built quite heavily around strategies and timing. That’s what you would expect from a tower defense action RPG but this game does it exceptionally well. We decided to share some information, tips and strategies from X35 Earthwalker, the master strategist himself.
Firstly the main thing is what character class did you select, as this does effect almost everything. If you selected ‘Sorceress’ then know that you have the ability to attack multiple lanes at once and hit enemies hard from a distance with powerful magic attacks. If you selected ‘Mercenary’ then you can literally get up and personal with the hordes themselves and slow them down with brute force. If you selected ‘Marksman’ then you can get everywhere very easily with high mobility and gun down hordes at a distance keeping you safe. Now all three are powerful and useful in there own way.
The Sorceress hits hard with the lightning attack and starts of with a cool icebolt ability that allows the player to freeze a certain enemy in place, a ice global ability (Icy wind) which inflicts ice damage on everything and a ability (Transmutation charm) to select a trap and whenever it kills, you get increased essence. The Sorceress is a major multi tasker. You can be lightning zapping multiple enemies at once, as your main attack has a spread and chain effect, while keeping one enemy temporarily in place with your ice projectile, gaining increased mana thanks to a well placed trap and attacking everything on the map at the same time with her global ability. That’s awesome. Never forget that the main fighters is the traps. You are just the deciding factor in these battles but you must rely on your traps. Keep your distance at all times as the Sorceress literally bruises easily. A few slaps and you have to get out of there but make sure to leave a lightning attack to their face as you do. Since she is 100% dependent on her mana, make sure to firstly, spend some upgrade points in ‘Meditation’ which increase maximum mana. Second make sure to upgrade her lightning ability, especially in ‘Surge of power’ and ‘Thunderbolt’ to reduce cost of attack, increase how long enemies are stun for, increase range of attack and increase the chance of an instant kill. ‘Frost mastery’ upgrade for Icy wind is essential as you can then keep hitting everything around the map more frequently meaning you are everywhere at once. The best defense you can have it to upgrade the ‘Chaos armour’ ability which has a chance of forming a bubble of invulnerability for 2 seconds whenever you have been hit but as a Sorceress you are practicing to not get up close at all so this is optional. Basically your job is hurt enemies from everywhere and multi task as much as possible.
The Marksman is a long range fighter thanks to his two cross bows. He excels at effect damage, especially poison damage over time. Being a long range fighter and having low health (not as low as sorceress), means you have no reason to be near a monster. His main attack is ‘Shoot’ and you must spam this as much as possible. Do as much damage when you can. The ‘Poison streak’ ability which uses focus and allows you to launch a projectile that deals poison damage and poisons those enemies. ‘Essence trap sigil’ is the trap skill that makes all traps within 10 meters of the player generate more essence when they kill. Lastly ‘Domain of entropy’ is the world skill that causes all damage over time effects to deal increased damage. Straight away you can see that this character specialises in damage over time and poison. The Marksman relies heavily on traps at all times. He is more of a support role all the way. The very first thing to upgrade is your main means of attack, those cross bows. Invest some points in ‘Shoot’, ‘Splintering bolt’ and ‘poison bolt’. This will allow your Shoot attack to have AOE (area of effect) and poison damage which when upgraded makes a big difference. The marksman has a huge advantage over the other two classes. He has access to the ‘Mark of the craftsman’ passive ability straight away which reduces the construction cost of all traps. Make this one of your top priorities with upgrades. ‘Entropy Expertise’ is another top priority passive skill has it increases all damage over time effects of traps which is something this class specialises in. The game plan is to poison as much as you can with the ‘shoot’ and ‘poison streak’ and build traps that do damage over time effects and then activate ‘Domain of Entropy’ to bring intense suffering and death to everything that rises against you.
The ‘Mercenary’ is the big guy who ate all of his mum’s cooked foods to get strong. He battles it out it up close with the ‘Strike’ ability which is his main means of attack. It delivers heavy damage and grants rage with each hit. ‘Ghostly shape’ is an active ability that allows you to dash forwards at blinding speed, charging through all enemies dealing physical/ice damage. His trap boost active ability allows you to select a trap which then does significantly more damage for 8 seconds. ‘Touch of death’ is the world skill that afflicts all enemies with physical vulnerability for a short period of time. The ‘Mercenary’ has a huge advantage over the others, his health. He is a tank and therefore can use yourself to force your enemies to stand on certain traps, this is because when you are near enemies mostly stop moving and fight you. With that amount of health you won’t be dying any time soon and so they must stay on continuous damage traps. Firstly you must invest upgrade points in your main attack, so ‘Strike’ and ‘Paralyzing assault’ which makes your strikes have area of effect and a chance to stun enemies. You may next need to focus on ‘Touch of death’ to increase the damage that all physical attacks from both you and traps do to all enemies everywhere. Don’t invest upgrade points in ‘Ghastly shape’ as it tends to take you away from enemies which isn’t what the Mercenary is about, although it is very useful to use until replaced as you can use it to increase your mobility. Use it to catch up to certain monster who are trying to make a run for it or traverse the map like no other (keep an eye on your rage meter though. The strategy with the Mercenary is simple. Get up in everythings face and beat it in with ‘Strike’ but when things get activate ‘Touch of death’ and then select a physical damaging trap with ‘Trap boost’. It’s a devastating combination. Therefore it is rise to invest upgrade points in ‘Mechanical mayhem analysis’ which increases the amount of experience points you get from each mechanical trap kill.
Now the traps are the main thing about this game indeed. There are so many traps, we heard there are 25. Now knowing where to put these traps and when is so important. Never forget that no trap is completely useless but some traps are definitely better than others. Check out your traps map selection screen. You will notice that the traps have to be unlocked by fulfilling certain conditions. Traps are split into 5 categories: Mystical ground, Mechanical ground, Mystical tower, Mechanical tower and summoning. Throughout the level are spots, marked, showing what type of tower can be built there so it pays to look at the map first before building to know where to put certain traps. Mechanical traps tend to do mostly physical damage but some do both physical and other element damage like the ‘Razor launcher’. Traps also have types of enemies that they are stronger or weaker against. For example the ‘Spear trap’ is effective against armoured enemies but weak versus horde enemies, this is because of the type of tower. That’s right the traps also have types. The towers are also split into types like: Concentrated, Piercing, Splash and nothing. Concentrated are good against ‘Giant’ enemies but weak against ‘armoured’. Piercing is good against ‘Armoured’ but weak against ‘Horde’. Splash is good against ‘Horde’ but weak against ”Giant’. Type-less traps are just general and work equally with all enemies. So you literally should check out and know each trap, what they are good against, when to use them and the upgrades they can get.
Regardless of what character you are, the ‘Gun sentry’ should be your all round traps that you can always rely on. They hit everything and deal great damage with very good range. Once upgraded they have area of effect and can slow down enemies. Best to use these in groups as that’s when they start to really shred enemies. This trap however can be truly power with the mercenary because if you build multiple in an area, they can deal focused physical damage on a certain enemy then the player can use trap boost to enhance the damage of one of them and also activate ‘Touch of death’ making the enemies receive more damage from physical attacks then lastly combine with your ‘Strike ability’. Trust us, nothing survives that. Not even bosses. The ‘Lightning pillar’ has terrible first impression as initially you would think it’s rubbish but once upgraded, it becomes a very effective trap. Always invest upgrade points in ‘Multi jolt’ and ‘Extra charge’ allowing the trap to have more charges to fire and the chance to hit multiple enemies at once. The ‘Acid geyser’ excellent with both the ‘Mercenary and ‘Marksman’ but better with the latter due to special abilities. The ‘Acid geyser’ deals poison damage to whatever enemy stands on it but once upgraded it can also poison enemies and deal damage over time. Best of all this trap also afflicts enemies with 30% vulnerability against physical attacks. This means that enemies struck by the ‘Mercenary’ and hot by the ‘Marksman’ will receive increased damage but since it does poison and damage over time the active abilities of the Marksman like ‘Domain of Entropy’ will increase the damage to it’s full potential.
The enemies don’t require that much detailed talk because if you know your traps well and strategically place them, then regardless of the enemy you will most of the time come out on top. Enemies are also split into factions, types and classes (Not sure if those are the right names though). The factions are: undead, mechanical and mythical. what faction you will face is only dependent on the location of the level. No in game differences. The types are: Normal, giant, armoured and horde. The types you should be aware of already because of the traps and what their strengths and weaknesses are. If you remember the traps well then enemy types aren’t a problem. Giants are weak against concentrated because concentrated traps never leave their target until out of range and they are normally slow moving. Piercing traps are good against armoured because they have the ability to do regular damage through armour while others are reduced damage. Splash damage are good against horde because they can harm multiple enemies at once. Makes sense. Off course all enemies will be harmed and killed by any trap but some are effect only due to logical reasons. The classes are (first two aren’t official names): regular, champions and bosses. For example the ‘Lesovik’ is a simple enemy with 1100 health, damage is 145 and has the simple fire bolt ability which launches a bolt of fire at you. The ‘Lesovik champion’ has 14000 health, damage is 200 and does more damage to your gate. The ‘Forest demon’ is a bigger step up from the champion version and is a boss with 28000 health, damage is 250, does more damage to your gate and has the ability to summon other smaller monsters to rush for your gate. There are more powerful monsters like these.
The simple recipe for this game is to know your style and how to adapt it to the many situations you will find yourself in. Before you start a level check the map to see what enemies are coming and where they are coming from as that might just save your life. Wisely upgrade your character and focus more on skills that you need and suit what your character can really do. While playing keep your other eye on the mini map to keep track of what’s going on as some enemies will try to sneak past you into your gate. Don’t try to upgrade all traps. Only upgrade what you use and what you need. Better to have some powerful traps then many weak traps that can’t keep up with the enemies. Don’t worry if you upgraded wrong as there is an awesome feature to get back your upgrade points. Buy and craft the best items for your character. If you are playing with a friend then communicate at all times and use your abilities to the best. Last of all, it’s just a game so take it easy and have some fun while slaughtering monsters. Now get out there are save the world.
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