Play Here: Defender TD

Defender is one of the most addicting online tower defenses available. Instead of building and upgrading the common cannon, arrow and various effect towers you summon mages and dexers. Each character amasses exp and gains levels. Each level you have the option to upgrade the mage/dexer’s special ability by selecting specialization. Generalization neglects the special ability but adds quite a bit more to their general skills.

What I really like about this tower defense game is the amazing amount of strategy that comes from relatively few development options. Each level is also quite a bit different from the last simply based on the monster mix. One quick suggestion is to play through a level once and keep track of the monster types. If you see a lot of Boss levels that are weak against a certain element focus on that element the next go around.

Interesting Strategy Options:
Standard vs Advanced Ratio - You might think that it is better to stick with standard mages long enough to get your adept mages on the board then focus on upgrading the advanced mages/dexes. This doesn’t seem to be the case. It generally seems that you do better off with a high ratio of standard mages but advanced mages seem to give you more points. So if you are shooting for a high score you want to build just enough adepts to win and that can take a lot of games to figure out.

Specialization vs Generalization Ratio - It seems like you usually get more bang for the buck going with generalization but it is important to pump some into specialization. Investing into blue, green and necromancer specialties seems to be the most valuable. All the others seem to be more cost effective to simply go 100% generalization.

Build Location - If you build all your mages at the start of the maze early and slowly move backwards you will find that it is hard to upgrade your back mages properly. I find that it is better to move from the back to the front.

Number of Mages - You might think that it is better to build fewer mages and focus on upgrades to get all your characters into the grandmaster class. I find that at some point it becomes inefficient to continue upgrading each mage. If you build a few mages and upgrade until they get too expensive before building additional mages your original mages will sap all the experience and your new ones will not be able to upgrade. It seems that if you build a lot of mages early and upgrade evenly you get a good mix.

Paving New Ground - In most cases I would say that it is a waste of money to pave new squares. There are a few levels that it is good to do so if you can give your long range necros a ton of creep exposure with a new square.

Be Careful with Dexes - If you build a dex too early and at the beginning of your maze they will destroy the ground waves but they will also take all the experience and leave you vulnerable against air waves. A ranger/dex combo may work well but I would put your anti-air mages at the beginning of your maze and put the dexes in the back.

Necro Pumping - Your necromancers have an ability that makes them stronger the more kills they get. I suggest trying to get a necro early then pump a few generalization levels to give them 4 range. Then pump into their specialty.