Thronefall – Guide to Eternal Trials

Eternal Trials Guide

By ItsMe_Raven.

Map Selection

• Sturmklamm > Frostsee > Uferwind > Durststein > Nordfels

You should pick maps generally in this order. At the bottom of this post you will find a guide to each individual map!

Weapons should almost never influence your decision. With the strongest strats, you are strong regardless of your weapon! If you see Sturmklamm as an option, you should almost always take it, since its the easiest map to win at.

Early on (Stage 1-10) you can pick a different map depending on the perks you get. Its better long-term, if you pick the strong perks (see guide to Perks). Just make sure that you can beat the stages on the harder maps with the enemies shown in the previews (see Guide to enemies below).

Weapons

As stated earlier, weapons should almost never influence your map pick. But if you are going for better Perks in the early stages look out for these weapons: Spear, Sword & Shield. The additional HP that they provide, helps you to survive the high damage output of some enemies.

Lightning Staff is also a really good weapon, to aggro many enemies at once, but its very hard to use properly, so only use it when you are experienced with the game and this weapon.

Codex and Bow are fine, but just weaker than the other options. They don’t deal enough damage to elite enemies and therefor dont give you any special benefit.

Castle Upgrades

If you just want to know which upgrades to go for, look under my headline “Strategies”.

• T2: Royal Training: good Default option. Sometimes early waves force you to deal more dmg with the king (on not Sturmklamm maps) and assasins training cant withstand the dmg of the elites. Optimal for melee King builds
• T2: Builders Guild: spending 7g to spend more gold to get value? That will kill you in ET. You need a power upgrade to beat the insane early nights. No use in ET imo
• T2: Magic Armor: still my go-to pick, even after the nerf. I really loved the old one, but this is still strong. Its needed to aggro the enemies, so your defenses dont get overrun. Doesnt kill everything anymore, but it seems very balanced now, as it can be your early-game AoE dmg. Makes the Commander-Mode + Tanky King strategy possible in the first place
• T2: Assasins Training: really cool, but your weapons are not strong enough to deal with tons of elite enemies from a far. So you need the survivability to withstand the dmg when using AoE.
• T3: Royal Mastery: good default option, but when you are not the main dmg-dealer, Godly Curse is just better. Still best option for melee King builds. Gives you all the stats you need.
• T3: Commander: I REALLY love the 20% power increase idea! The 20% are a huge deal in commande mode strategies. I go for this upgrade situationaly, when I need my lizzard riders to deal more damage against high priority / health targets.
• T3: Castle-Up: at the point of me having the eco for the 20g to upgrade to tier3, I dont really need the saved gold. Exspecially because I only have 1 tower (because of abusing power tower). No use in ET imo
• T3: Godly Curse: was double buffed and feels very good to pick. Very good default option if you play a tanky king. Just press one button and forget about it.

Strategies

I have experimented a bit and found 2 strategies that work the best: Commander Mode + Tanky King and War Horse + Damage King. Which strategy you want to go for depends on your playstyle, map and enemies that spawn.

Commander Mode + Tanky King:

Your gameplay consists of using Magic Armor (Castle Center T2 upgrade) to stall the enemies, so your ranged units and towers can take out the enemies.

Castle Upgrades to go for: You will absoltuely want Magic Armor as your T2 upgrade. It gives you a good amount of HP and makes you able to aggro many enemies at once. Use Godly Curse or Commander Mode as your T3 upgrade. If there are many Quickslings and Catapults coming up, use Commander in combo with Lizzard Riders, so they can snipe these high priority targets (see enemy guide). If there is none of these, take Godly Curse. To use Commander Mode, you do not need to do anything. Just use the newly buffed 20% bonus for stationary units. Make sure to make your Units hold position by pressing down the command units button for a couple of seconds, untill small circles appear under your units. With Godly Curse, you will need to press “Lock-on” once per night (on Keyboard its “Alt”). Just press it once per night and forget it. The game does the rest.

Useful Perks: Commander Mode, Power Tower, Heavy Armor, Gods Lotion, Ring of Resurrection, Resistances, Ranged Damage

The way this strat works is: You run into the enemies, so they attack you. Magic Armor has recoil damage, which damages the attacking enemies and they will now target the King. To make sure that no enemies slips by, you will want to run in a circle. If you dont do that, when there are many enemies, at some point they cant reach you anymore. And if they havent attacked you for 5s, they will start attacking something else. Also important is, that you keep the enemies in range of your units. They deal the damage, not you.

War Horse + Damage King:

Your gameplay consists of running through and near enemies to kill them.

Castle Upgrades to go for: Royal Training T2 and Royal Mastery T3. They give the the damage boosts and HP bonuses you need to stay in the fight and deal your damage.

Useful Perks: War Horse, Heavy Armor, Warrior Training, Melee Damage, Daredevil, Resistances

Deactivate Commander Mode Perk!

They way this strat works is: You want to either, run through all enemies, to hit them as often as possible with your war horse (works if you have few enemies / weak enemies / much HP) or constantly run close to them. Ideally, you are close enough to deal damage with your War Horse, but they arent able to deal damage to you back. Just keep in mind that War Horse deals recoil damage to yourself, so you might have to take a break from fighting to heal back up.

Towers

Its pretty simple: take Castle Tower T2 (first option) and take Ballistic Spire T3 (second option). Its the highest DPS of all combos and you will need it against all the elite enemies. Also pairs VERY well with power tower.

T2:

• Sniper tower has too much of a attackspeed drawback to be useful. There are so many enemies, they will be in your tower range either way. You really dont need more Range
• Bunker is useless with power tower. The attack-speed cap of bunker is the same, even with power tower. So having a bunker-power tower is like having a normal tower with reduced range.
• The protection of armored tower is cool. But at the point that the huge horde of elite enemies are attacking your tower, you already have a huge problem. So not very useful in ET
• The base option for T2 seems very good. Bonus attack speed, bonus health. Just an all round good upgrade, no drawbacks

T3:

• Archers Spire with the 2 arrows is fine. I sometimes do it when there are a lot of low health enemies.
• Ballistic Spire is very good. Its huge dmg that you need vs Elite Enemies and with T2 attackspeed reduction and power tower its Just a dps beast. So probably the best combo?
• AoE is cool. But 50% dmg panelty seemed too much. Didnt deal enough damage to elites when I tried it, so I wouldnt use it. (there might be a nieche case with armored tower + fire spire, but I will update this post if I find it to be actually useful)
• Healing is okay. But since King HP is no longer = dmg, you waste your power tower on not killing the enemies. That just isnt enough at some point. You can use this with the Damage King build, but I believe its not worth it to use power tower on this.

Perks

There are a lot of good perks. Some of which are dependant on the strategy you are going for. See “Strategies” for playstyle specific perks.

Important Perks to look out for:

• Power Tower. Place just one tower in a central location (see map guides below) and it will make your life that much easier. trust me
• Playstyle specific perks: Commander Mode or War Horse;
• Great Perks: Architect’s Council, Loan, Treasure Hunter, Faster Research, Ring of Resurrection, (when you already have Power Tower: Arcane Towers, Elite Towers,) Royal Mint
• All the other Perks that haven’t been mentioned. There really isnt anything bad here. Take Big Harbours to make non-Sturmklamm Stages easier and take Ancient Shrines to make Sturmklamm easier.
• Glass Cannon. Just deactivate it as soon as you get it. In Tanky King strats it cuts your health to 20% with no return. In Damage King builds its not even x2 Damage, while making your HP so low, that you can barely even attack (War Horse has recoil damage!!). Just left click it (make it grey / deactivated) and forget about it.

Units

With the units you have to be very flexible. There are good default options, but below I will explain when to pick which one:

Melee Units:

• Knights are still the good default. They did get nerfed, but are still the unit you buy, if you need tanks vs ranged. This is the case if you play a Map other than Sturmklamm and there are enemies coming from multiple sides or when you are playing Sturmklamm but there are many elite Hunterlings.
• Spearmen are okay. Fast enemies just are ntscary. Basicly All fast enemies are monsters, so I rather just buy Hunters, that can actually kill them. So just dont use Spearmen
• Flails are actually good now. They are the better tank against melee units and I pick them if I need a unit to be exactly that. This is in the same case as with Knights, but instead of ranged enemies coming, there are many melee enemies coming. Note: These really only become strong after you have the tanky perks: Elite Warriors, Health Potions and Resistances
• Berserkers are funny. They jump now, which makes them die even faster. They just jump into 100 elite enemies and die. Never buy these. If you need dmg vs Siege, buy fire archers, a power tower or upgraded lizzard riders..

Ranged Units:

• Longbow Archers are bad. They just dont have enough damage against elite enemies and you dont need the range. You play ET. there are up to 1000 enemies, they will be in your range either way.
• Crossbowmen are okay. But they have so few range, that they actually just fight elite enemies in melee range. They dont win that battle. Its cool in the early stage against normal enemies, but dont use them against elites.
• Hunters are no longer that versitile after the nerf, but they still excell at fighting monster type enemies. If you see a lot of monster or exploders, buy these. Especially with Racers (on maps that arent Sturmklamm). They will still help you with everything else, but they should just be your monster-slayers
• Fire Archer are still the best default. Note that they got nerfed. If you want them to be good, you will need to buy a lot of them, so they reach a critical mass of AoE damage. Buying both ranged barracks as fire archers is ideal, but not always possible! If you see siege enemies, always buy these though!

Enemies

Depending on your strategy, different enemies are relevant. So first of all, general info:

Enemy Types:

• Monster: Exploder, Hunterling, Monster Rider, Racer, Slime, Spiky Slime, Fury; Use Hunters to counter these
• Siege: Catapult, Ram, Exploder, Barrel Knight, Quicksling; Use Fire Archers to counter these

High Priority Enemies: Can snipe your defenses and Castle from far way. Be aware of them when fighting:

• Quickslings
• Catapults

High Danger Enemies: Consider these when picking your Map:

• Hunterling, Quickslings, Catapults, Pikes, Elite Crossbow Men, Racer, Ogres

War Horse + Damage King specific:

• Easy Enemies: Archers, Peasants, Slimes, Swordsmen, Catapults
• Medium Enemies: Monster Riders, Racers, Spiky Slimes, Barrel Knight, Rams
• Hard Enemies: Elite Crossbow Men, Exploders, Mole Enemies, Flying Enemies
• Dangerous Enemies: Pikes, Elite Hunterlings, Ogres, Quickslings

Easy Enemies are enemies, that you can just kill in mass. You just run through them and they all die without a problem.

Medium Enemies are kind the same. You can run through them and you deal enough damage to kill them, but either they deal much damage back, are very fast or have very high hp (so it takes very long). Be on your toes when fighting these

Hard Enemies: You cant really fight these on your own. Either because, they have movement that makes you irrelevant (like flying or tunneling away from you) or they deal such high damage, that you cant really stay in fight with them.

Dangerous Enemies: Can end your run right here, right now. One Pike slow and you are done. Once you die with your damage King strategy, you lost your whole defense and the slow almost guarantees that you will die. Ogres (and Hunterlings) just deal insane amounts of damage and you dont really deal anything back to them. Quickslings, once they spawn in groups at once, you wont reach them before you are mowed down. With the newest update you can make them start shooting, run away, wait a little bit and then attack them while their attack is on cooldown. But this is still really hard. You are going to need something else to deal with these enemies. (see below how to counter each enemy)

Commander Mode + Tanky King:

• Easy Enemies: Archers, Monster Riders, Peasants, Slimes, Swordsmen, Barrel Knights
• Medium Enemies: Spiky Slimes, Pikes, Mole Archers, Wasps, Flying Mages
• Hard Enemies: Quickslings, Elite Hunterlings, Ogres, Racers, Rams, Furies, Mole Knights
• Dangerous Enemies: Catapults, Exploders

Easy Enemies are enemies that you can either kill in mass with the recoil damage from magic armor or that deal so few damage that you can tank almost infinite amounts of these

Medium Enemies are enemies that you can tank, but they have a high enough DPS that they kill you eventually or their movement makes it hard to make them aggro you instead of your other defenses

Hard Enemies: Deal more damage than you can tank consistently or you have now way of aggroing them. You will need other defenses to help you with these

Dangerous Enemies: Can end your run. You cant take aggro and dont have the damage yourself to deal with these. Make sure you counter them with other defenses or you will lose

How to Counter Each Enemy:

• Peasants: anything really. If there are more than 20, you will need AoE thought -> AoE = Magic Armor, War Horse, Fire Archers or Flails
• Archers: Either you kill them with War Horse, you will need some tank -> Magic Armor, War Horse, Knights + any damage
• Catapults: Take them out fast or from far away -> Damage King, Fire Archers + Archery Skills, Ballistic Tower + Arcane Towers
• Exploders: Take them out fast -> Hunters, Lizzard Rider, Power Tower, barricades
• Hunterling: Run away / stall them untill your other defenses kill these
• Monster Rider: Something to tank and dmg behind it -> Magic Armor / Flails + Power Tower / Hunters
• Ogre: High damage defense -> Power Tower, Lizzard Rider
• Racer: Hunters, critical mass of fire archers, barricades
• Ram: Fire Archers; Power Tower and Lizzard Rider work against low counts
• Slime: Any AoE -> Magic Armor, War Horse, Fire Archers
• Spiky Slime: Strong AoE + Tank -> Flails / Magic Armor + Fire Archers, War Horse
• Swordsmen: AoE -> Magic Armor, War Horse, Fire Archers + Flails
• Wasps: Arrows -> Towers, Hunters, Lizzard Riders
• Pikes: Arrows -> Fire Archers, Lizzard Riders, Towers
• Fury: Arrows -> Hunters, Towers, Lizzard Riders
• Barrel Knight: Tank + Damage -> War Horse, Magic Armor / Flails + Fire Archers; Power Tower in low numbers
• Flying Mages: Arrows -> Lizzard Riders, Towers
• Mole Knights: Arrows -> Towers, Lizzard Riders
• Mole Archers: Arrows -> Towers, Lizzard Riders
• Quickslings: good Kings or high range + high damage: War Horse, Magic Armor, Fire Archers + Archery Skills, Ballistic Tower + Arcane Towers, Lizzard Riders + Archery Skills

Sturmklamm

I advice to use the Commander Mode + Tanky King strategy here. As far as the map goes, there are 3 main spawns, with a couple of Air-only spawns.

Loan Perk needed: At the start of each stage I usualy upgrade my Castle to T2 and pick Magic Armor. I also buy the tower in purple circle 1 to be my power tower (Power Tower Perk needed), build a royal forge to upgrade my HP (Faster Research Perk needed) and build a house. With each night, I add lizzard riders (Architects Council Perk needed), fire archers and hunters as I need and use the rest of my money to build more houses around my castle center. When I have built the hero quaters near my castle center (upper red circle) I also buy the mine (lower red circle). This makes almost all enemies from Spawn 1 (green triangle) get stuck in a pathfinding bug on the path between the red circles. This only works if you have both buildings!! Only go for Castle T3 once you have all the houses and royal forge / blacksmith upgrades

If you have neither Loan, nor Architects Council, build your power tower in the second purple circle instead. it will be available from the beginning. Add defenses according the the same strat above

As for general gameplay, you will want to position your lizzard riders and fire archers around your power tower. the main area where you want to be with your king and hold the enemies is the blue-ish rectangle in the middle of the map. You also want to activate as many shrines as possible (with Anient Shrines perk). Spawn 1 enables shrines 1 and 2. Shrine 3 will always be activated passivley, Shrine 4 is tricky. You want to lead a few enemies in the early nights up to the top to get it activated. If you dont get it, its not a big deal. Shrine 5 can be activated with enemies from spawn 3 and you basicly never activate shrine 6. To activate shrines, you need to kill enemies near those. When Easy and Medium enemies (see “enemies”) spawn from a location, you can use these to activate the shrines. Dont try this with hard or dangerous enemies.

Your ideal max defense would look like this: 2 max lizzard riders, 2 max fire archers, 1 castle tower + ballistic spire power tower, 3 tankyness royal forge upgrades, 1 melee resistance, 1 ranged resistance and last resistance based on the enemies. 2 max flails holding the path to the top in the blue-ish circle. on the last night buy a second tower (same tiers) on the second purple circle and stand near it to use power tower and elite towers at the same time for more power.

Uferwind

I advice to adapt your strategy according to the enemies you will face. See which enemies can be easily beaten under “enemies”:

The map has multiple spawns in the west and a few air-only spawns.

Start by building your power tower in the purple circle. I usualy also upgrade my castle to tier 2 (is a must for tank strat!) and buy a lizzard rider. Depending on the enemies and your starting gold, buy bridges 1 and 2. Dont always buy bridge 3!, its a way for enemies to get around the wall in the center. Bridges, just like houses, give 1 Gold per night and cost 2 gold. Buy these before houses. With your spare money, buy harbours. the one at the bottom red circle is safer, but you will want both harbours in the red circles. If you need more defense, buy fire archers. Its important to overspend on defenses on Uferwind, as the waves are harder than average.

For eco you only build the bridges, 2 harbours and the 3 houses in fron of your castle. it will be enough. Buy blacksmith upgrades, whenever you have money to spare.

If you dont have loan perk, prioritise getting the lizzard rider and tower over upgrading your castle to tier 2.

As for general gameplay, you will want to attack dangerous enemies right when you spawn, to use the time you have untill they reach your defenses. After that, hold the enemies in the blue-ish rectangle in the range of your other defense.

If you face many exploders, you want to buy the big wall (yellow circle). the exploders will target the wall down before your actualy base gets attacked. You will need Castle T2 + Architects Council Perk for this though.

Your ideal max defense would be 1 max lizzard rider, 2 max fire archers, 2 max knights, 1 castle tower + ballistic spire power tower, melee resistance, 1 ranged resistance and last resistance based on the enemies. Spend the rest of your money for castle tower + ballistic spire power towers around the blue-ish rectangle.

Frostsee

I advice to adapt your strategy according to the enemies you will face. See which enemies can be easily beaten under “enemies”

Make sure that there are no or only very few exploders. They are really hard to deal with on this map, if they come out of the northern spawn.

Start by building your power tower in the purple circle. I usualy also upgrade my castle to tier 2 (is a must for tank strat!). I also try to buy both the harbours. If you dont have enough money for both, buy the lower one (architects council or loan perk needed). Dont buy any buildings in the crossed areas. If you buy the harbour and dont have buildings in the forbidden areas, enemies from all spawns, except one, will go through the area of the blue-ish rectangle (except racers). Only the cave spawn at the red triangle will go through the right side.

As for general gameplay, you will want to prioritise the cave spawn with your king and leave the power tower and units to defend the left side. If you need more fire-power to deal with the cave spawn, take a couple of units and put them in front of your castle or houses. You will want to keep the enmies in the blue-ish rectangle. With the way the map is layout, the enemie spawns will arrive one by one at your defense, making them able to kill everything. Whenever you have spare money, buy blacksmith upgrades.

Your ideal max defense would be 2 max fire archers, 2 max knights, 1 castle tower + ballistic spire power tower, melee resistance, 1 ranged resistance and last resistance based on the enemies. Spend the rest of your money for castle tower + ballistic spire power towers around your castle. If you have huge amounts of money, you can also buy towers and the wall in the crossed area. but only if you have enough to affort towers and the wall at once.

Durststein

I would advice you to use the War Horse + Damage King strategy. There are no fancy tricks on this one, just plain combat.

Start by building your power tower in the purple circle. I usualy also upgrade my castle to tier2. I also buy the mine next to my castle. After that, its just adapting to the enemies that are approaching. Fire archers against siege and small hp stuff and hunters vs monsters, etc. If you have spare money, buy the farms at the top of the map (red circles). They are save from every other spawn, that is not up there. Just note, that with bad RNG, some enemies might walk there when your bottom farm is lvl2.

As for general gameplay, you will want to adapt to each wave individually. Sadly no great tips I can give here. Use the long paths the enemies have to take and attack them from their spawn. At the end, keep the enemies in one of the blue-ish rectangles. Which one depends on which side the enemies are coming from. If you see no enemies coming from the south-east or the north-west, you can buy additional mines, but just keep in mind that this is very risky and you dont want to risk your whole run over 6 Gold.

Important to note is, that ranged enemies can attack your castle from the top red triangle and catapults, as well as quickslings, can attack your castle from the bottom red triangle. Be aware of these enemies from these spawns.

Your ideal max defense would be 2 max fire archers, 2 max knights, 1 castle tower + ballistic spire power tower. Spend the rest of your money for castle tower + ballistic spire power towers around your castle. If you have huge amounts of money, you can also buy towers and the wall in the south-west, but most of the time, your other defense will be enough.

Nordfels

Please just dont pick this. But if you do, I advice to adapt your strategy according to the enemies you will face.

The problem with this map is, that there are just so few defenses. They arent enough for later stages

Start by building your power tower on the purple circle. I usualy also upgrade my castle to tier2 (is a must for tank strat!). Buy enough defense that you can survive the round and buy as much economy as possible, you will need every little bit. Only buy the farm on the left. the other ones are so far in front, that you wont be able to defend them. Then buy the houses behind the castle.

As for general gameplay, you will want to keep the enemies in the blue-ish rectangles depending on the enemy spawn locations. The only thing this map has going for it, are its walls. try to use them to your advantage as big tanks.

Your ideal max defense would be 2 max fire archers, 2 max knights, 1 castle tower + ballistic spire power tower, all walls max. Spend the rest of your money for castle tower + ballistic spire power towers around your castle.