Just last week Trendy Entertatinment released the latest Dungeon Defenders DLC with the Assault Map Pack and Barbarian. Now I’ll give you my thoughts on each of these new additions.
Assault Map Pack
Dungeon Defenders now has three new very attractive maps to play on, but that isn’t all, the maps are a different challenge as well. Instead of defending the Eternia Crystals, now you are setting out to destroy them and all the traps are being turned against you. Destroy all the Eternia Crystal before time or your lives run out to win this challenge.
This is a fun new way to play that reminds me of an obstacle course in a way. It really gives you a feel for the weaknesses of some of the traps, or at least it did for me. I really liked how each of the maps looked so different.
Barbarian
Barbarian is the first Dungeon Defenders champion released with absolutely no defenses. This makes him vastly different than all the others, which by itself makes him worth buying in my book. Barbarian has battle stances instead of defenses and which each of the battle stances you get a boost to different aspects of the character in exchange for a decrease in other aspects. Here is a rundown of the battle stances:
Tornado Stance: Ups attack speed, movement speed, and jump height. Lowers the damage output.
Lightning Stance: Stuns enemies that you hit. Your character takes some damage.
Siphon Stance: Steals life from the enemies. Lowers your resistances.
Turtle Stance: Ups all resistances. Reduces movement speed and jump height.
Hawk Stance: Large amount of damage on next attack. Can’t do anything for a few seconds after.
The worst part of these stances is that you don’t start with any of them or a hero ability. In the beginning it is just your barbarian pounding away until level five when you get Battle Leap hero ability. Battle Leap helps you get close to enemies quickly, so it is a good first ability for the barbarian to have since he needs to be in battle as quickly as possible. The Barbarian does not have his first stance until the 10th level and his last one isn’t unlocked until level 74 which seems pretty ridiculous.
I don’t really see how a barbarian by himself could defeat the whole game without having defenses from some other class put up. Maybe someday someone will find a way to, but with all the Eternia Crystals to defend a Barbarian can’t be everywhere. I don’t see it happening. It appears that a Barbarian is to help out in group situations with killing as many enemies as possible or after you set up a defense if you want to kick a lot of tail. I don’t think this is a bad thing, just different thinking than with other classes. Also I would not suggest this as a first class for a new person, unless they have friends to play with to put up defenses.
