Apprentice 101 - Introduction

Welcome to my first Dungeon Defenders Eternity guide on Steam!

Let me preface everything here by stating that this guide is all about the Apprentice, and is not a general game tutorial. I'm assuming that you have a general knowledge of the user interface, the Forge, controls and other such basic things.

If you require help understanding the core game itself, feel free to reference another guide, or one of the various forums. Even YouTube can help you out and get you started.

I may create an in-depth "Dungeon Defenders Eternity 101" guide if there's enough demand for such a thing; just let me know!

Either way, I hope this guide helps all of you aspiring Apprentice players, and thank you for choosing my guide!

Apprentice 101 - Towers/Abilities

So, you want to be an Apprentice, huh?

Well, I'm here to help you through your journey as you take your first steps into Dungeon Defenders Eternity as this amazing hero!

For starters, I highly recommend that you play through the core campaign by yourself to get a feel for the Apprentice. This can be done on the easy difficulty just for practice, and should serve as a great tutorial for the core mechanics of Dungeon Defenders Eternity, and this guide should serve as a great tutorial to get you all the way to the end of the game.

But you're not here to simply be told to play the game and figure it all out on your own, are you?

Of course not! That's what this guide is for! So let's start with the basics!

First of all, you'll want to know your arsenal inside and out, which consists of 4 offensive towers and 1 defensive tower, as well as 2 hero abilities.

The Apprentice towers are as follows:

-Magic Missile
-Magic Blockade
-Fireball Tower
-Lightning Tower
-Deadly Striker Tower

Each tower offers its own benefits, but there's always a need for variation, especially if you're attempting to play through the entire game without any other heroes.

You're probably wondering what the heck these towers do, so let's break it all down.


Magic Missile (3 Defense Units / 40 Mana) - This is the first tower available to the Apprentice, and is unlocked right away. The Magic Missile tower has the fastest rate of fire in the entire game, but also the slowest projectile speed. This generally wont matter until playing on higher difficulties, but you should build accordingly, as not to have your slow projectiles attempting to shoot things that are too far away. The Magic Missile tower does low damage per shot, can shoot at what I'd consider a medium range, and has no element, which makes it a physical damage tower. This will be a cornerstone of your builds as a solo Apprentice, especially on lower difficulties, and at lower levels.





















Magic Blockade (1 Defense Unit / 20 Mana) - The second tower that unlocks for the Apprentice (at hero level 3), The Magic Blockade is your only method of defense, and serves as a way to keep enemies from getting too close to any of those precious crystals. It has low resistance to damage and also low health, but it holds up just fine for difficulties up to and through Hard. On Insane, things start to get a bit more difficult, and the blockade is a bit tougher to utilize without proper repairs. For now, the Magic Blockade also removes any elemental resistances of any enemy that touches it, but that is being patched out soon in favor of a 50% resistance buff. That buff will allow the Magic Blockade to last much longer, but it will lose its special resistance debuff. As of this initial writing, the change has not went live, so keep an eye out for updates to the game.

Fireball Tower (5 Defense Units / 80 mana) - The third tower unlocked by the Apprentice (at hero level 7), The Fireball tower is the other half of your primary offensive setup throughout most of the first 3 difficulties, and even most, if not all of Insane difficulty, until you have better equipment. The Fireball tower shoots medium speed projectiles at a slower rate of fire than the Magic Missile tower, and the damage is also of the fire element, but the damage per shot is much higher, it has great range and unlike the Magic Missile tower, it deals splash damage. All enemies near the projectile's point of explosion are hurt, making this tower great for clearing out large groups of enemies at once. Typically, a good Apprentice pairs 2 Magic Missile towers with 1 Fireball tower for a good mix of offense, generally with the Fireball tower placed directly in between the 2 Magic Missile towers for maximum efficiency.













Lightning Tower (7 Defense Units / 120 mana) - The fourth tower unlocked by the Apprentice (at hero level 11), The Lightning tower, while nearly useless without a very specific range focused attribute build, and only then at the highest tier of the endgame with very good equipment, is a very powerful aura-like offensive tower that destroys just about anything that comes close enough to the tower. The tower fires off rapid bursts of "chain lighting", which is of course of the lightning element and "chains" from the first target of each burst to a handful of targets nearby the first target. This is, in effect, a weaker version of the Monk's Lightning Aura, but with the right equipment, high enough stats and a good strategy, this thing packs one heck of a punch. But until you've reached what people consider the endgame, you can safely ignore this one in favor of other towers.













Deadly Striker Tower (7 Defense Units / 150 Mana) - The final tower unlocked by the Apprentice (at hero level 15), the Deadly Striker tower has the most powerful single shots in the entire game, but is also the slowest firing tower. There are 3 major upsides, however, that make this tower a weapon of mass destruction during the endgame portion of Dungeon Defenders Eternity, so long as the attack speed attribute is high enough. Not only are the projectiles incredibly fast, and the range incredibly long, but this thing shoots through absolutely every obstacle in its path. That's right; this thing is like a permanent railgun in tower form. Just be cautious, as it fires slow enough to be almost useless at lower levels, or with poor equipment. A good Apprentice should wait until endgame to create focused builds based around Deadly Striker towers, and even then, the speed requirements are very high.










And there you have it! The Apprentice is one of the easiest characters to solo with, provided you put in the time and effort to create proper builds and strategies for each map.

But that's not all! We also have 2 hero abilities!

Overcharge (4 Second Cooldown / Mana Drain While Active) - The Apprentice defensive ability (unlocked at Hero level 5), Overcharge is an activated ability that drains mana at a rapidly increasing rate in exchange for a greatly increased hero casting rate. This allows the Apprentice to build, upgrade and heal themselves with incredible speed, and it can come in handy during earlier parts of the game. It has nearly no use on higher diffuclties, though, as good equipment adds more than enough hero casting rate to make everything almost instant.

Mana Bomb (90 Second Cooldown) - The Apprentice offensive ability (unlocked at Hero level 20), Mana Bomb is a simple area of effect offensive ability centered around the Apprentice. Upon use, an explosion flows through the Apprentice and hits every enemy within' the given radius. It can be a useful ability if playing a DPS apprentice, but in Dungeon Defenders Eternity, it's just not practical. However, if you are playing the original Dungeon Defenders as opposed to Eternity, DPS Apprentice are indeed a decent choice. Just remember to create a good builder hero before you get into creating any sort of DPS Hero! It's almost impossible to completely clear a map without a good tower build!

If you want to continue and learn more, check out the next chapter of this guide, where I will be covering which hero attributes are good and bad for the Apprentice!

Apprentice 101 - Attributes

As an Apprentice, you're going to want strong towers above all else.

To do that, you're going to want high offensive tower attributes.

But wait, which attributes should you increase? There are so many, and they all seem great at first glance!

Well, I'm sorry to say this, but not all attributes are created equal for all heroes. Every hero should focus on attributes that help their class specialty, and the Apprentice is no exception.

Let's break each attribute down, and explain why you may or may not need each one as an Apprentice.

Hero Health - This one is generally not needed for builders, but it helps to have a bit of health for those sticky situations. Generally, you will have more than enough hero health tacked on to your equipment without ever needing to add anything at all.

Hero Power - This is not needed at all for a builder Apprentice, but is the primary stat for any weapon-based damage dealer. I highly recommend reserving all weapon damage for other heroes, such as the Huntress or the Series EV.

Movement Speed - So long as you have at least 100 points here, you don't need more than that. The rest is just a bonus. And again, you will probably end up with way more than enough on your equipment, and wont ever have to touch this attribute.

Spell Cast Rate - This is an important attribute for any builder, but yet again, a good set of equipment will have far more than enough spell cast rate to make any building task nearly instant. At lower levels, it may be worth spending just a few points here, but beyond that, it's just not worth it.

Defense Health - Much like hero health, this is an attribute that comes with a good set of equipment. So long as your defense health is around 1,500 when it's all said and done, there's not really any need for more. More is better, but never put any of your points into this attribute from levels or upgrades.

Defense Power - As one of two primary attributes for the Apprentice, this should be either your primary focus, your secondary focus, or one half of a balanced build. This depends on which other heroes you have leveled and geared, but as a solo apprentice, it's important to keep a good balance.

Defense Range - Much like most other attributes, this one comes with the territory and requires no extra upgrades. So long as this reaches at least 1,000, which is incredibly easy by the time you're ready for the endgame, there is no need for more.

Defense Speed - As the second important attributes of an Apprentice, defense speed is incredibly important. At endgame, it's up for debate as to which of the two attributes are more important. It depends on your builds, strategies and which other heroes you have leveled and geared. As a rule, however, a 1:1 ratio should be utilized when balancing the two attributes if you're just soloing the game on the first 3 difficulties.

Offensive Ability Power - This raises offensive hero abilities and pet damage, and is best left alone altogether for any type of Apprentice. Just ignore this attribute and leave it for the heroes that truly need this one. It may be worth noting that this attribute replaces hero attack when building a pure DPS Summoner, as they only use pets, and with no weapons, they do not need hero attack. But that's for another guide; another time!

Defensive Ability Power - This raises the effect defensive hero abilities, but does absolutely nothing else. Again, ignore this attribute altogether as an Apprentice and leave it for those that truly utilize it.

All of the other attributes are physical and elemental resistances, and are self-explanitory. Never upgrade any sort of resistance attribute, ever! You can not upgrade resistances with attribute points gained from levels, so just ignore them entirely; they come free with good gear, anyway.

Now, let's dig a little deeper!

To get your towers up to par, you're going to need to increase your chosen attributes, which can be done in two ways.

First, you can simply level up the Apprentice to a maximum cap of 60 levels. Each level will grant the Apprentice attribute points, which can be allocated to your liking.

The best part? If you happen to place your attribute points into the wrong areas, you can simply purchase a potion from the Tavern Keeper, use it and boom! All of your attribute points will be refunded, and you may then spend them however you wish, all over again!

Otherwise, unless you respec your Apprentice, all of those attribute points are permanent, with or without any equipment or other bonuses.

Now, there is another way to increase your stats by very large amounts, and the simple answer is just a single word: equipment.

Enemies drop loot, you pick up the loot, and if it has the attributes you want, you put it on!

But there's more!

Most loot can be upgraded through the Forge by spending hard-earned gold coins, which is a very simple, but often expensive process.

Note that, If an item drops with an item level of 1/1, it cannot be upgraded. It must be at least 1/2 to purchase an upgrade.

To begin the upgrade process, simply go to the Forge and double click the left mouse button over the item that you wish to upgrade, then click on the attribute that you wish to raise. It's really that simple.

And remember, upgrading an attribute may cost gold coins, but the cost is often worth it when upgrading level 60 "Supreme" equipment, or very buff pets.

The reason that these upgrades are so powerful is a matter of simple mathematics. Upon upgrading an attribute, it will increase by a full 10% of the equipment's base attribute.

Example: A helmet has a base tower attack speed attribute of 100. Each upgrade will raise this attribute by 10 points. And even better, it rounds up! So if the attribute is 101, it will raise by 11 points per level!

And what's more still is the fact that the best equipment can have base attributes as high as 700 in a single stat, with a maximum of 16 levels. That leaves 15 total levels of upgrades, which in this case equals 1,050 extra attribute points on a single item, and making the chosen attribute 1,750!

And to take this madness even farther, there are set bonuses, which add as much as 30% of the current attributes to ALL equipped pieces of gear when wearing a full set, which would turn that 1,750 attribute points into a whopping 1,750+535, which totals out to 2,285. That's a ridiculous amount, and this is exactly why it's possible to become supremely powerful in Dungeon Defenders Eternity!

So, to summarize, your main goal is to hit level 60 and find a matching set of level 60 "Divine" gear with good attributes, then upgrade that set as much as possible. Throw in a good pet with high attributes and you're right where you need to be!

It's important to note that, upon reaching level 60, you should ONLY SEEK DIVINE EQUIPMENT. This set has the highest chance for amazing tower based attributes, as well as the highest set bonus in the game. This is easily obtained on the Nightmare difficulty while playing either Survival or Mix Mode on most maps.

As you can see, attributes in Dungeon Defenders Eternity are quite a simple concept, but they are the entire basis of addiction within' Dungeon Defenders 1 and Eternity. It's all about getting those big numbers and totally dominating everything that comes your way!

If you'd like to see an example of an Apprentice with decent high-end equipment for a speed focused build, take a look at this screen shot:


This concludes the attributes portion of this guide. That wasn't so hard, was it?

Now that we've covered the basics of attributes, it's time to move on. In the next section, we'll be taking a look at the fastest way to gain levels early on with a new character.

Apprentice 101 - How To Level Rapidly

I want to say something before I go on...

This portion of the guide is in no way intended to annoy or otherwise offend anyone. I realize how easy the first 10 levels are, and that almost anyone should have obtained those levels by now, but there are always a handful of people that prefer to go into things with as much information as possible, and this section of for those people.

But to get to the point, and to put it lightly, the Fireball tower is a necessity if you're going to survive anything beyond The Deeper Well without trouble, but it isn't unlocked until reaching hero level 7.

So, what's the fastest way to hit level 7?

Well, first of all, clearing The Deeper Well on any difficulty is the very first thing available to any Dungeon Defenders Eternity player, and easy is so mind-numbingly trivial that just about anyone could clear the level by spamming any offensive tower all over the place until you run out of defense units. And really, you don't even need more than 6, or possibly even 4 Magic Missile towers if you place them in the appropriate places. To reiterate: This minimalist strategy only works so long as you're playing the map on the easy difficulty, or after you've become a bit more powerful.

Upon clearing The Deeper Well on easy difficulty for the first time, any hero will have reached level 5 if it was a perfect clear, or just shy of 5 without a perfect clear. In the case of the Apprentice, we then have access to the Magic Missile and Magic Blockade towers. 2 runs like that and you'll be level 7+ in under half an hour, total, and likely even level 8.

But the absolute fastest way to hit level 7 in a single run from the very beginning is just to skip easy and play The Deeper Well on normal difficulty, but this does not work with every hero, as you must have access to a good offensive tower at level 1 for this to work properly.

On normal, you will gain levels much faster, allowing you to hold more mana, build more towers and upgrade things to level 1 throughout the match, and it all happens much faster on normal mode.

As far as the strategy goes, it's easy! Just focus on placing Magic Missile towers at the top of the stairs and around that general area and upgrade the center towers first on each side for an easy win, which should take no more than 15 minutes if you collect every treasure chest and loot whatever dropped at the end of each round. Add some Magic Blockades for good measure, and you shouldn't have much trouble.

Yep. 1 single run will get you to where you need to be, and if you perfect the whole thing, you may even hit level 8, allowing you to wear that level 8 equipment after your very first map. And if you enable Hardcore mode, you're all but guaranteed to be at least level 8. Just make sure that your towers can kill everything in case you die at any time, so that you'll be revived during the next wave!

If all else fails, it should only take 2 easy runs to hit level 8+ and find some basic equipment, but it's worth pointing out that better gear drops while playing on higher difficulties, so you may want to seriously consider giving normal mode a try.

So, where do you go from there?

Well, you can keep grinding until you have every slot filled with low level equipment, or just until you're satisfied, or even bored.

It's easy enough to keep clearing The Deeper Well on Hard, and eventually with the Hardcore setting enabled, and reach level 20+ in a short amount of time, and if that's your cup of tea, go for it.

But you could also move on to the next section of this guide and progress beyond the first map!

But a word of advice: Just try to stick to easy and normal difficulty after The Deeper Well, at least until you're very confident with your equipment and strategies! Each new map is much harder than the previous, and this fact should not be taken lightly!

Generally, just be very cautious about the difficulty setting, and try not to go straight for Insane, and especially not Nightmare. You WILL lose very rapidly, as this game is designed to be played from the ground up by new players. Your towers simply wont deal even close to enough damage, and will die in a single hit from even the most basic of goblin enemies.

Having said that, with your first 3 towers and hopefully some new equipment, and possibly even more than that, you're ready to tackle the standard building strategies of the Apprentice hero and progress straight through to the end of the core campaign, and it just so happens that those basic strategies are next on the list!

Apprentice 101 - Basic Strategies

As an Apprentice, your primary role will almost always be as an offensive builder, utilizing Magic Missile and Fireball towers, with a Deadly Striker in an opportune spot here and there, all the way up to and through the Insane difficulty.

But be warned that Deadly Striker towers are VERY SLOW, so use them sparingly and only in very opportune spots on each map until you've hit the endgame and have some nice divine equipment!

WARNING: The general strategy included in this guide doesn't truly kick in until you have reached hero level 7. Please be sure that you have read and followed the preparation section of this guide before moving on!

During the early build phases of any map, it's important to drop Magic Missile and Fireball towers in opportune places. This is especially true when playing solo, although Magic Blockades should be a partial priority if too many enemies are getting close to the crystal.

The general setup, as discussed briefly earlier in this guide, includes 1 Fireball tower centered between 2 Magic Missile towers, all of which should be set up in such a way that they hit as many enemies as possible, while also guarding important areas of the map.

This setup is the bread and butter of almost every Apprentice build up to and including Insane difficulty. It's simple, relatively cheap to set up, and does some hefty damage with a proper strategy.

Using the very first map on Easy, "The Deeper Well" as an example, a simple setup would be as follows:

Run around, collect all of the mana from treasure boxes, and build Magic Missile towers at the top of each stairway closest to the crystal.

Note that, at level 1, your mana pool is very limited, so repeat trips across the map to collect mana will be necessary. This becomes a bit of a nuisance on Insane difficulty, as there is a time limit to collect mana and build from then on.

For now, though, just worry about Easy, Normal and Hard. Those 3 difficulties have no time limits during the build phase, so you can learn everything and master your builds before moving on to Insane and eventually, Nightmare.

Also, it should be noted that both Survival and Mix Mode have no time limit during the initial build phase, regardless of the chosen difficulty.

After that, make sure that a Magic Missile tower is placed on each side of the map at the very top to combat any enemies that may funnel through the top entrances during later waves.


From there, drop some Magic Blockades if necessary, throw some some Fireball towers near the Magic Missile towers, get to upgrading!

Sometimes, this basic building strategy can be altered when there are wyverns or other flying enemies. In those cases, it is sometimes a great idea to place a Deadly Striker tower in such a place that it focuses entirely on those flying creatures. That strategy usually makes very quick work of anything that flies, and should reduce the overall chaos of any map that has any sort of flying creatures substantially.

Contrary to what some may say, upgrade order is crucial, and it varies by map and difficulty, as well as whether or not you are playing solo or with other players.

Generally, you will want to upgrade any Magic Blockades first if you're having trouble holding enemies back. But from that point on, it's a good idea to maximize the damage of all Fireball towers as soon as possible, as later waves involve combat with many more monsters. The Fireball tower helps more than Magic Missile towers at that point, but it takes time to upgrade the Fireball towers, which is why you would want to upgrade them earlier.

After all Fireball towers are upgraded enough that you feel content with their damage, focus on the Magic Missile towers.

And remember, DON'T FORGET TO REPAIR! Or, if a tower is low on health and you can upgrade it, simply upgrade the tower and its health will be refilled as an added bonus along with the upgraded tower damage!

This is the basis of all Apprentice strategies throughout the early and mid game, but this does not always work during later portions of the game.

Just be conscious of where you're playing towers, and experiment until you've created a working build for each map. If you do this all on your own without the help of others, you'll learn quite a lot, and you will benefit greatly from the experience.

However, it is not necessary to create your own builds, as there are many guides, forums and general examples of cookie cutter builds for each map with very few exceptions.

So really, if your goal is not to innovate, and you just want to destroy the game as fast as possible, you can follow build guides and do things that way.

Either way, the end result is generally the same, but you may have trouble with the more difficult maps if you don't know what you're doing on your own!

NOTE: See the included picture for a general idea of how the basic tower setup looks in game. Just place this setup all over each map in opportune places, and you should do just fine.

This concludes the basic strategy section of this guide. It's not very complex, but it doesn't have to be. We're just here for a basic understanding to farther grasp the concepts of Dungeon Defenders Eternity and what it has to offer!

This concludes the "Apprentice 101" portion of this guide. More chapters will be added that include information for those seeking higher knowledge, but if the basics is all you were seeking, it looks like our time is at an end!

If you're still a bit confused about certain core elements of the game, you should reference another general tutorial. Perhaps I'll write one another time, but for now, this guide is purely about the Apprentice.

Should you require any farther information, though, please feel free to contact me and I'll do my best to teach you what I can!

Until then, take care, young adventurer, and enjoy the game! Perhaps we'll encounter one another in game one day!

Apprentice 101 - Closing Statement

If you've made it here, I can only hope that you now understand the Apprentice hero at least a bit more than you did when you started reading this guide.

I've been playing Dungeon Defenders Eternity since launch and have sunk hundreds of hours into the game, and the Apprentice is by far my favorite hero, so it is with love and passion that I wrote this guide.

Thank you, sincerely, for choosing my guide over any other guide for your introductory course for the Apprentice hero.

And also, congratulations on making it to the end, and enjoy your status as an Apprentice 101 graduate!