Magus Citadel Survival NMHC Build Wave 23 Start

My first steam guide! :D

Excited to share this build as several ppl had come to me mentioning that they struggle with this map -- and, unsurprisingly, so did I; until I came up with build after a full 3-days of frustration.

Since I'm an old-school Etherian, I do not use apprentice tower stacking. If you share the same passion, this guide is for you :D

I also do not expect this build to be perfect with no room for improvement or further tweaks -- any constructive feedback is always appreciated, feel free to leave them in the comments or reach out to me!

I hope this build brings you op armour and deadly pets :v

Here's a walk-through of the building process:
https://youtu.be/9Bx4Kymo5Kg

I plan to update this with a more polished version of the video, which would embed the tips and considerations of the build. However since it'll be a not-so-simple video production project, and I probably will be busy for a while, this guide is currently the only place for the most comprehensive introduction of this build.

Truth be told, this build was derived from an app-tower-stacking build where everything is in front of the forge, and minion walls keep mobs at a safe distance on both sides.

Consider this build as me challenging the current lightening-tower spam meta.
I'm aware that waves will be a little longer this way, but it does not change any fundamental game mechanics by design, such as "towers take space themselves". I like things balanced and working in symphony, and I hope you can appreciate the symmetry and beauty of this build.

Since the pillar of this build is about aggro all the enemies up top near the forge, it is important that visible players don't linger around for too long right next to the bottom core. Upgrading towers is fine, but you'll notice if you do it for too long, some enemies may make their way to the core and might accidentally damage it. (You can always re-draw aggro by doing high damage to them and relieve the situation).

The most annoying parts of this area are the Djinns and, occasionally, Ogres. The two reflection beams should keep the core safe from all spawned mini-towers shooting at it; they're not buffed in the build I showed so that it's not really necessary to bother upgrading them much.

I am considering replacing the Spike trap with just Proximity traps, as it may work better and further shorten each wave. The gas traps there are meant to keep the Djinns at bay so that the two deadly striking towers up top pointing at the bottom core will kill them before any of them suck away a defence building, causing the build to collapse. The sightly reduced size of the gas trap is to give the Proximity trap more space to trigger on small mobs before they're stunned by the gas (hence it'll work more effectively and also speed up the wave a bit), meanwhile covering as much of the area near the bottom core as possible to counter any wild Djinns.

This refers to the core up top further in, instead of the one closest to the forge. The spike traps on each side is essential to eliminate mobs rushing towards that core; they do get beefy in health during final waves. The 3 reflection beams help to eliminate the distraction coming from mini-towers damaging the core occasionally, as there is nothing specifically built in that area to lay down heavy fire. The auras and traps, along with lightening towers and deadly strike towers, should be sufficient to reliably secure this side - so long as you have 1 gas trap chocking the traffic from the north corner spawn. Not much needed to be said about the app towers near the forge, except that I find the pack looks pretty cute afterwards. :3
The main tips for building are:

1. Seal the staircase by using a 5-DU Buff Beam isn't of a 4-DU one (before I did that, Ogres may squeeze through during final waves when they occasionally pile up), and stacking most of the archers in the middle on that beam, so that archers aggro the Ogres instead of the spiders and mages. The reflection beam here is mainly for wave 30+ and to prevent Copter Missiles laying down heavy fires on the minions. Likewise, the same applies to the other side of minion walls: use the pillar of the building to seal off the potential path where Ogres can squeeze through, and a reflection beam is there to prevent the core from receiving accidental damage from the spawned mini-towers.
2. Reduce the size of the Spike traps so that they do not overlap with the spawn areas on the lower level, and that they'll only be triggered by Ogres (perhaps also annoying Djinns during final waves).

Unfortunately I had experienced frequent lobby issues when running this map publicly. When I'm hosting, other players' game often see their interface freezes (except for the enemy numbers counter); and likewise for me when I join other's games. I hope in future patches this could be addressed, but until then, personally I've adapted to consider this as a single-player map. The build works reliably with 2P so long as your builder stats average at around 4k-5k. Farming 4 harpoons in one go is doable, as it only requires reaching wave 30. When doing so, it does seem to push the build a little bit, but things won't go edgy. For 4P summoner farming both armour and deadly striker pets at the same time, actual 4 players are recommended, as I have not personally succeeded so far with emulators. :(

Also, for armour farming with only summoners, it is recommended to keep at least 1 summoner visible and to stay near the forge as much as you can. I've had rare occasions where I've gone Phase Shift for too long and the aggro failed due to overwhelming number of mobs during the recharge of lightening towers. The auras and traps do need to be healed at least once during each wave after wave 25+, so unfortunately this is not a completely AFK build for armour farming.

A few players have mentioned that aggro at the bottom core sometimes does not work, especially for ogres. I'm in the process of finding out if it's a game glitch or there's an effective tweak can improve the reliability of this build even further. Personally I no longer encountered similar scenario after I have arrived at this build. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.