The best way to spend your Skulls in Orcs Must Die: Deathtrap

Robot Entertainment's newest release, Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap offers a lot of choices to the player up front. They're all centered around spending Skulls that you collect as rewards from missions. If you're not sure what you should spend them on first, we'll help you out.

What's available to spend your Skulls on?

There are three main places to dump your Skulls into, and they're all important. That's what makes it an interesting, albeit paralyzing, choice. There's a lot of appetizing options, and none of them are technically wrong. Any progress is still progress, after all.

The first category is Trap Upgrades. Spending your Skulls with the merchant Hugo will allow you to improve your Traps. Each Trap will have three categories you can improve, usually revolving around cost, damage dealt, or recharge times. Each upgrade you purchase gets more expensive, regardless of where you put the point. So, if you feel like you want a trap to have a certain benefit, max out that category before leveling up others to get the best discount.

As a side note, whenever you finish a mission, you'll obtain a special Gold Skull that you can take to Hugo's brother Gus to purchase new traps from. Once you've purchased all the traps, you won't get any new Gold Skulls. You also won't need to talk to Gus much afterward.

The second category available for you involves character improvements. There's a Skill Tree you can view by talking with Gabriella. The massive tree applies to you as a player. Buffs purchased through it apply to each character. Each time you purchase a node on the tree, the next one gets more expensive, regardless of direction. There's a few specific nodes that have a fixed price due to them being special upgrades. We'll talk more about those later. Each character also has their own tree on the left, allowing you to power up your favorites.

Finally, you can also purchase additional Threads. After each wave, you'll get a choice between 3 Threads to power up your character for the rest of the run. Threads you purchase get added to the pool of ones you can draw from. If you find yourself gravitating towards a particular character, think about getting their Threads first.

Personal Growth

With all these delightful options to augment your orc-smashing, is there really an optimal way to advance? We think there is, and it starts with the main characters. You should start dropping skulls into the skill tree first and foremost. Feel free to drop a couple of upgrades into traps while you're at it. Don't go too heavy, because you won't know what traps fit your playstyle right away.

In fact, you likely won't know which character you want to play. With six from the outset and a seventh unlockable, it'll take a few rounds to figure out who jives with you the most. While you're figuring that out and collecting some skulls in the process, make sure to keep upgrading the general hero tree. The upgrades you purchase will apply to all heroes, which is what makes it the best place to start. No matter what you purchase, everyone benefits.

When it comes to the skill tree, I recommend you build towards two specific points. First, go for the Anti-Boss perk at the top, a little to the left. This will be instrumental in you making progress. You might be able to make it past the first boss before getting this upgrade, but it will be essential for bosses beyond. After that, move towards the Utility Belt in the upper right-hand corner. That gives you an extra slot to your Loadouts, allowing you to take one more trap into battle. How you get there is up to you, but you should absolutely make a straight run for these skills first. While most of the skills on the tree get more expensive as you buy points, these two key abilities cost 2,000 skulls, no matter what. Keep that in mind while you're saving up.

Once you start to get a feel for the different characters, I recommend you also spend time upgrading their abilities. Each character requires their own upgrades, though the prices are the same for everyone. Who you want to play really depends on your personal play style, as well as whether you have a team. Ultimately, everyone is pretty viable, so give them all a try before you start powering up your favorites. If you're stuck on choosing, I recommend Harlow. She has a great close-range weapon, her sidekick Henry for extra damage, and her Pretty Lights ability rocks. It creates a zone that does damage over time where the grenade lands.

Traps, Traps, Traps!

Once you've obtained the key skills mentioned above and leveled up your character, it's time to get serious about your trap selection. By now, you should have had time to experiment with each of them. so you should know what you really want to invest in.

If you're not sure what traps to load up with and need a couple of suggestions, I've got you. You can't go wrong with the new Rift Barricade. While it wasn't available at launch, it's absolutely a must-use now. Aside from being an additional barricade, you can purchase with Rune Coins during a run; it also empowers adjacent traps.

There's also the Bramble. Place it next to a Rift Barricade in a choke-point and watch the orcs turn one patch into a whole field of destruction. It helps to carry a poison trap like the Poison Gas Emitter or the Poison Flower to combine with the Bramble with the correct Thread.

Finally, try out the wall blades. They're great for tearing up orcs around tight corners or in narrow paths. Plus, they're light on the wallet and aren't very big. This allows you to put them in sneakier places to dice your enemies into orc-amole.

Tie it all together with Threads

Lastly, there's Threads you can purchase from the Weaver of Will. I consider these to be the least important upgrade due to a couple of factors. Primarily, it's because they're expensive. But, there's also a lot that is specific to individual characters. You won't likely know who you're into using right away, so it's not worth just buying these early on. Plus, you'll unlock other Threads by completing challenges with one of the other Fate Weavers, so you'll still be getting plenty of upgrades for the system.

Once you've got a decent set of traps powered up, as well as your characters, you'll probably know exactly what Threads to get. The ones that correspond to your favorite characters and traps should be first, as well as the ones that help everything. Blunt the Knives, for example, is a strong one because Hunters will be a problem for a while. Getting this makes them much easier to deal with, but 500 skulls is a lot early on.

The post The best way to spend your Skulls in Orcs Must Die: Deathtrap appeared first on Destructoid.