Hard Mode Gameplay Guide
Intro
Hard mode is very different from normal. On top of the normal waves and bosses, it comes with a Dungeon which you have to clear out in 16 minutes or lose. The enemies also have much more health than in normal and hence you have to scale your damage up much more quickly. This guide will cover what you need to pay attention to in each phase of Hard. It is also recommended to only attempt Hard from sb/mg 3/3 onwards.
If you haven’t already, check out [Mythic Unlock Order for Hard](https://luckydefenseguides.com/unlock-order-hard) to see our recommendations on Guardians to prepare for Hard.
Early Waves (W1-W20)
At the start, your priorities are:
- Summon Bandits to build your coin economy
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Clear as many missions early as possible
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Epic roulette to get some Epic guardians and stuns on the board
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Get 1-2 DPS mythics
Summon Bandits to build your coin economy
Bandits are the other pillar of your coin economy next to sb. Their Loot skills is what helps you to gain more coins, besides killing enemies and completing missions which reward coins. Your Bandit should at least be level 6. Ideally level 15 but preferably level 9+ for the +10% attack speed.
You ideally want to summon 6 Bandits. If you’re lucky enough to get more than 6, good for you. But you need to decide on a summon cost to stop summoning because nonstop summoning will obviously kill your coin economy. My recommendation is stop at 80-cost unless you have less than 3 bandits, then summon till you hit 3. More conservative players suggest stopping at 60-cost. You have to decide what works for you.
Once you summon Bandits, send them into the Dungeon where there is a boss for them to beat on constantly and trigger their Loot skill. If you leave them on the main board, they’ll be idling 25% of the time. If you only summoned 6 Bandits, there will be one empty space where you can send your DPS later on to clear the Dungeon while your Bandits continue to farm coins.
Clear as many missions early as possible
Clearing as many missions as possible is crucial for earning luck stones early for the next tip for this phase and for getting coins early to do your coin summons to get your Bandits. The missions you want to rush are:
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Blacksmith (Upgrade 2x): Immediately upgrade Common and Epic once each. This gives you a net gain in coins for completing the mission, one luck stone from the Lamp artifact, and more damage for your Epic guardians to take down the golems and W10 bosses.
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Summon all Commons: You should get this along the way to summoning 6 Bandits.
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Sell 5 Guardians: If you have not gotten enough epic guardians for the next mission by W6, sell 5 units you don’t want to get that extra luck stone to attempt another epic roulette. If you have more than 5 units you don’t want, merge until you only have 5 units you don’t want. If you can merge 3 Rares into an Epic, do that. Otherwise, sell 5 and spam Epic roulette. Do not sell or merge Shock Robots unless you have more than 6.
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Successfully hunt Golem before W10: How many Epic guardians you need to make this work depends on the level of your Epic guardians. If they’re level 15, you just need one with your 1 Epic upgrade. If they’re 12, you will need 2-3 between yourself and your teammate. If they’re below 12 then you either need more or may need to upgrade Epic another time. Regardless, make sure you can kill the first golem for the mission.
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Collect 10 Luck Stones: Seems counterintuitive but this mission is actually easy once you figure it out. The previous golem mission gives you 1 luck stone. Each golem killed gives you another 2 luck stones each for a total of 5 luck stones. If you have enough DPS to kill the golems, you have enough to kill the W10 bosses. Don’t spend any luck stones until after killing the W10 bosses. That’ll net you another 4 luck stones. If you get the early kill bonus, that’s another luck stone which tallies to 10 luck stones. If you fall slightly short, just sell a rare or two to hit 10.
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Collect 1,000 coins: At some point you should have stopped summoning, whether it is at 6 Bandits, 80-summon cost or 3 Bandits with summon cost above 80. Thereafter you should be able to complete this before W20.
Epic roulette to get some Epic guardians and stuns on the board
Epic guardians will be your main DPS contributors until you get your first DPS mythic up. As suggested above, use Epic roulette summon till you have enough Epic guardians to kill the golems (and by extension W10 bosses). If you are out of luck stones and still need more damage to kill the first golems, upgrade your epic level once or twice. After the collect 10 luck stones mission, spend all your luck stones to summon Epics to try to merge to a Legendary.
You need stuns unless you plan to whale on immortals to cheese through Hard. Keep your Electro Robots and Shock Robots unless you have at least 3x Electro Robots and 3x Shock Robots remaining after merging. Before the lategame you should ideally have 3x Electro Robots and 6x Shock Robots.
Get 1-2 DPS mythics
Unless your Epic guardians are all maxed at level 15 and you have a whole bunch of them. you’ll need DPS mythics to kill the W20 bosses. That’s how fast the hp scales up in Hard. W10 bosses? Killable with 1-3 Epics depending on guardian level and upgrades. W20 bosses? Either 10+ Epics wailing on it till 10s left or a DPS mythic. And even with the DPS mythic you may not get the early kill bonus if your stuns are not set up properly.
Secondly, there is the Dungeon to deal with. When you get to sb5+, you have the luxury of waiting till W30 to start clearing the Dungeon before it ends at ~W42-44. When you just start, you need all the time you can get to kill the 5 Dungeon bosses.
That’s why you ideally want at least 2 DPS mythics so one can focus on the Dungeon and the other can clear waves and bosses on the main board. Between you and your teammate you will want 2-3 DPS mythics but people can be prone to bad RNG on roulettes and legendary merges. Or bad teammates in quick matches.
The DPS mythics which help in the early game are:
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Sheriff → Hailey 6
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War Machine → Chu 6
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Storm Giant → Tao 12 / Vayne 6 (Vayne is Dungeon only)
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Tiger Master → Kun 6
Don’t Forget Dungeon (W21-W42)
Continue to increase damage output
In this phase, the priority is taking down Dungeon and increasing your Mythic DPS output. This can be rolling for a 2nd to 4th DPS, or upgrading mythic level damage so that your existing DPS mythics deal more damage. Often, upgrading a few levels of mythic damage will help your single DPS clear the Dungeon in time while allowing you to keep 2 spots for your Bandits.
Build up your supports
Once you have enough DPS mythics, it is then also time to start building your support board. Monos and Kitties for luck stone generation and MP Regen. Attack speed increase to increase overall board effectiveness. Defense reduction for physical DPS (both yours and your teammate’s) should be at least 180 and preferably 200 by W80.
After you take down the W40 boss, make sure to clear the Dungeon before the timer runs out. With that you will enter the late-game phase of Hard.
Burning eco to save your game
It's inevitable. Sometimes luck is bad and gets in the way of you setting up your ideal board. Maybe you have bad RNG on getting stuns. Maybe your Chus keep exploding. Maybe you have a 5% Epic Roulette summon rate.
If you still don't have a DPS mythic by W25, you need to consider maxing summon level and burning coins on summons to squeeze out a Legendary to get your DPS mythic.
Danger signs for when you might need to burn coins:
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There was less than 20 seconds left when killing the previous boss and neither side has gotten a new DPS mythic
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Mob count hovers around 60+ for a prolonged period or continues increasing when above 60
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You or your teammate was relying on only base Chu and/or Frog for DPS and just exploded it
Late-game (W43-80)
Once in the late-game, you need to assess your board to make a very important decision. What Legendary do you want to pick from the W50 boss reward to help you clear Hard?
Here are some statistics to help understand how much Hard ramps up in the late-game:
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At W60 (including taking down the boss), total damage dealt would be at least 1.5 trillion
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At W70 (including taking down the boss), total damage dealt would be at least 4.5 trillion. That means twice as much damage has to be dealt in these 10 waves as the first 60 waves.
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At W80 (including taking down the final boss), total damage dealt would be at least 13 trillion. That’s nearly triple the damage from W1-70, and over 8 times the damage from W1-60.
A lot of that health will be from the bosses. So you need to be confident of dealing enough damage to the bosses. With that in mind, the following scenarios are in order of highest priority first:
Not enough coin economy
You want to aim for 300k+ coins by W80. For sb3, that’s at least 30k coins at W40 or 40k coins at W45. That’s a very tall task and largely depends on whether you get a good number of Bandits at the start. If you don’t have enough, you will face issues killing the W70/W80 bosses.
To overcome this, you will need to summon Lances and Kitties to deal enough damage to the bosses. See Lance-Kitty Strategy for more details. For W50, you should pick Sheriff (75% chance to appear). With Lance 6, that’s 3 Lances with active swapping of the third Lance in when the ult is ready. Minimum 4+ Kitty Mages within range for their ult to benefit the Lances. With Lance 12, 2 Lances will be sufficient.
With this strategy, your stunlock must be solid to have no leaks. That is minimum 3 Electro Robots and 6 Shock Robots on each side, mirroring each other in location to maximise stuns. Make sure this is in place as early as possible.
Have this set up and you will deal enough damage to take down the bosses.
Slightly short on coin economy, have Awakened Hailey
If you fall slightly short on coins but have Awakened Hailey (immortal form) unlocked, try to rush a Awakened Hailey out. If you don’t have a Hailey yet, go for Sheriff on W50 (75% chance to appear). After your coin passes 50k, max summon level and summon to have Hailey reach max Star Power and to build up your support board.
If possible, have 3 Kitties next to your Hailey to boost her MP Regen with their ults to maximise the chances of summoning Awakening Hailey.
Good coin economy
If you do have enough coins, use the W50 reward to summon another DPS mythic of your choice. Between you and your teammate, you should have 5-6 DPS mythics combined. Focus on upgrading mythic damage after and filling out your support board. See Hard Unlock Order for the suitable DPS and supports.
Only spend coins if you will still have at least 300k by W80. The thresholds at various checkpoints are:
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W40: 30k coins
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W45: 40k coins
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W50: 55k coins
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W60: 95k coins
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W70: 170k coins
Max your summon level before spending coins to maximise the number of luck stones from selling excess rares, epics and legendaries to use to upgrade your mythic damage. Remember to keep support units you need (eg. Eagles for attack speed increase, Hunters for defense reduction for Physical DPS).
Alternatively if you have access to Indy 6+ and don’t have a good spot to place another DPS mythic, consider getting a Sheriff for an Indy. If you are lucky on the treasure dug up from his ult, you can get a massive buff. Aim for the luck stone per wave, attack speed increase, and (if you have Physical DPSes) defense reduction buffs.
