If you’re struggling with flyers in Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap, you aren’t alone! This guide will cover some of the best strategies you can use to keep them under control while keeping your rift safe. At first, these sneaky barricade-ignoring enemies might seem like a handful. However, with the right traps and investing some skulls in the right places, they will be far less of a problem.
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How to Deal with Flyers in Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap
The best traps for stopping flyers in Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap are the Ice Lance, the Auto Crossbow, the Wall Scorcher, and the Acid Shower. The next two sections will dive into why these traps are so effective and how to utilize them best. Another way to easily take down flyers is by increasing your primary damage in the war mage skill tree. Finally, keep an eye out for threads during your run that make your preferred flyer-killing traps even more deadly. Read the sections on each of these tactics to learn more about the reasoning behind each strategy.
Ice Lance and Auto Crossbow Traps
The Ice Lance and Auto Crossbow are the two most effective ways to deal with flyers because of their large areas of coverage in every direction. Set them up around the rift and any choke points leading toward it and most flyers will be quickly disposed of. Investing some early skulls into upgrading these traps will make this strategy even more potent. The two work particularly well as a combo, with the Ice Lances freezing the flyers in place, so your Auto Crossbows have time to get off a second burst of arrows.
The Ice Lance is by far the best method for dealing with flyers in Orcs Must Die! DeathTrap. Creating a few layers of these will outright kill weaker flyers and freeze stronger ones in place, allowing you or Auto Crossbows to finish them off. This is particularly helpful with the Cyclops Druids, whose annoying beam will get cut off or prevented from firing altogether. Investing skulls into the trap and making it a mainstay in your trap loadout has other benefits beyond countering flyers. They are also great for freezing bosses, ogres, trolls, and any purple icon enemies whose high damage or large health pool might threaten your war mage or the rift.
Auto Crossbows are great for flyers because their large targeting area allows them to deal with flyers no matter what direction they come from. They pair well with other traps to deal with flyers as well. They will either provide damage to flyers that are frozen by the Ice Lance or finish off any that are weakened by status effect traps. In the next section, we will explain why status effect traps also do a great job at keeping flyers away from your rift.
Damage Over Time Status Effect Traps
Status effect traps that can cover air pathways used to approach the rift are excellent for whittling down or killing flyers in Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap. The wall scorcher and acid shower are best because of their high damage status effect and perfect area coverage. Using these to cover the different ways flyers might approach the rift will apply plenty of damage to them. This will ensure they either die on the way or arrive near the rift weak and easily finished off by auto crossbows or even by your war mage.
Wall Scorchers are the best status trap for dealing with flyers. This trap boasts high damage and a four-barricade long trigger box. They easily cover some of the largest hallways that flyers might use to reach the rift. If you space them out so the burning status gets reapplied multiple times, most weaker flyers won’t make it past. This trap is also great for dealing with all enemies large or small, flying or grounded.
A status effect trap that can used to stop flyers is the Acid Shower. Some approaches might not easily accommodate the length of this trap or even have a place for you to set it up due to the open-air nature of many of the maps. However, if you can cover an area with this trap, its damage and effect are better than the Wall Scorcher. Similarly to the Wall Scorcher, it is great against all types of enemies.
Increase War Mage’s Primary Attack
One of the most surefire ways to deal with flyers in Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is to do it yourself. Most flyers don’t have huge health pools. Therefore, all it takes is increasing your primary damage to effectively counter them using your war mage. The primary damage-increasing nodes in the war mage skill tree are not too far from the start, so investing some early skulls here is a great idea. A few ice lances can also help keep them frozen while you burst them down. There are also a few nodes that can increase your critical hit chance for your primary attack. While some of these are not as close to the beginning of the skill tree, they will help you kill flyers or any other enemy you are fighting.
Select Anti-Flyer Threads
Finally, keep an eye out for threads during your run that buff your preferred flyer-killing trap. Anti-Air can make sure other enemies don’t distract your Auto Crossbows from dealing with flyers if that is their primary job. The double damage buff makes them extra effective as well. Frostbite is an amazing thread for the Ice Lance that wreaks havoc on groups of flyers and ground-based enemies alike. Combine that with the Stay Cool thread and the Ice Lance is a force to be reckoned with. Slow-roasted can help your Wall Scorchers apply even more damage over time to flyers. There are a few threads specific to each of the traps mentioned in this article. If chance makes them available, they are worth selecting if they match your favorite flyer countering trap.
