Universal Tower Defense: The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Becoming a Pro!

Acquire Legendary Units

Your first crucial step in Universal Tower Defense is to secure reliable legendary units. We specifically recommend 'Shakumira' and 'Admiral' as excellent starting choices. These units are not only strong in their legendary form but also have the potential to evolve into powerful mythical units, making them highly valuable for your early game progression.

Utilizing in-game codes (like RELEASE, THANKYOU, UNRIVALED, and 40KCCU) will provide you with starting gems and trait rerolls to help you summon these initial units more quickly. These codes are essential for getting a head start in the game.

Complete Story Mode in Low Modulation

Once you have a decent unit lineup, focus on clearing the Story Mode. It's advisable to set the difficulty meter as low as possible (e.g., 75% modulation). This approach allows you to progress through Acts 1-6 in areas like 'Ninja Forest,' 'Marine Base,' and 'Hollowed Moon' without excessive difficulty.

Remember that 'Hollowed Moon' introduces flyer enemies, so ensure you have units capable of attacking air targets or play with a friend who can assist. This strategic approach will help you progress smoothly through the story content.

Leverage Level Milestones and Achievements

As you clear story mode stages and accumulate experience, you'll naturally gain levels. Crucially, don't forget to claim your rewards from 'Level Milestones' and 'Achievements.' These sections are your primary source of gems and trait rerolls in the early game.

Regularly checking and claiming these rewards will provide you with the resources needed for your next steps, including enough to pull for your first mythic unit. This consistent resource gathering is key to progression.

Summon Your First Mythical Units

After gathering enough gems from milestones and codes, it's time to aim for your first mythical units. We highlight 'Kirito' and 'Kenpachi' as top-tier mythicals. Kirito pairs exceptionally well with the 'Duelist' trait and is excellent for end-game content like the Virtual Realm.

Kenpachi, being a hybrid unit, bypasses hyper armor, slows enemies, and makes them take more damage, making him one of the best overall units for crowd control and damage. These units will significantly boost your team's effectiveness.

Farm Challenges or Legend Stages

With your new mythical units (or while saving for them), you'll want to farm for further progression. The 'Half-Hourly Challenges' are recommended for farming trait rerolls and evolve items, essential for strengthening your units.

Alternatively, 'Legend Stages' can be farmed (even macroed for certain acts in very low modulation) for consistent drops. Choose the farming method that best suits your playstyle and current unit capabilities.

Optimize Unit Traits

Now, it's time to refine your units by rerolling for optimal traits. Aim for 'Duelist' on Kirito (0.8% chance) for significant critical rate and boss damage. For Kenpachi, 'Sacred' (0.3% chance) or 'Ruler' (0.1% chance) are excellent choices, with Sacred being more attainable.

Additionally, ensure your 'Fastcart' unit has the 'Fortunate' trait (1% chance) to boost your in-game income. These specific traits will greatly enhance your units' effectiveness and should be prioritized.

Acquire and Max Mythic Relics

Relics are crucial for boosting your units' power. To get mythic relics, you'll need to farm 'Nightmare' difficulty stages in Story Mode. Set the modulation to 75% for a balance of challenge and reward.

Focus on obtaining relics that provide significant damage boosts (e.g., +60% damage) for your main attackers like Kirito, hyper armor damage for Kenpachi, or damage over time (DoT) boosts for units with burn abilities. Enhance these relics to their maximum level (e.g., Level 15) to unlock their full potential.

Expand Your Roster with Support and Utility Units

Once your core mythical units are well-equipped, start diversifying your team. 'Virtual Idol' is an invaluable buffing unit, providing crucial boosts to your damage dealers. Other characters like 'Spade' are also good additions.

Prioritize evolving these units as well, as evolution often unlocks new passives and significantly increases their utility and power. A well-rounded team composition is essential for tackling harder content.

Continue Farming Relics for All Units

Even after acquiring your main relics, the grind continues. Go back to farming Nightmare mode to ensure all your essential units have their best-in-slot mythic relics, fully enhanced.

This step is vital for transitioning into the mid-to-end game, as maxed-out relics provide substantial stat increases and unlock powerful set bonuses for your entire team.

Farm Featured Challenges for Rerolls

To further refine your units' traits and prepare for advanced content, regularly farm the 'Featured Challenge.' This is your sustainable source of trait rerolls, allowing you to chase those elusive perfect traits for your primary attackers and support units.

The game is quite free-to-play friendly, so consistent farming here will yield great results. Patience and persistence are key to optimizing your team.

Understanding Unique Mechanics (Stat Points & Etherealization)

Unlike many other tower defense games, UTD offers unique progression mechanics. When your units level up, they gain 'Stat Points.' These can be allocated to cooldown, range, or damage. For most damage dealers, spamming cooldown is often beneficial as it directly impacts DPS.

For buff units like Virtual Idol, range is usually preferred. Additionally, 'Etherealization' allows you to fuse duplicate units to unlock new passives, giving your units unique abilities and further boosting their power. Always etherealize duplicate units instead of selling them!