Onslaught

Onslaught is one of the gamemodes in Dungeon Defenders 2, which features stronger enemies as you progress. It is available as soon as you complete the Campaign.

Features

Onslaught has many special rules that aren't present in other gamemodes. Here is a list of the special ruleset:

Rule 1

The further you progress through floors in Onslaught, the higher level enemies will become. This seems straightforward on the surface, but you can end up with enemies far stronger than in chaos 7 difficulty on floors 30+.

Rule 2

Every lane has special conditions as to which monsters can spawn from it. The name of the lane will also change as well to indicate what will spawn there. A list of common names for lanes is listed below.

Rule 3

Enemies can be affected by lane mutators. You will probably encounter your first lane mutator at floor 3. Lane mutators can be viewed by holding shift and will appear below the list of enemies. The further you go in Onslaught, the more mutators that will appear in each game. Each lane is limited to 2 mutators at a time, and which mutators appear is completely random (re-rolling an onslaught floor will re-roll mutators again). A list of lane mutators can also be found below.

Spawning Conditions

These are common prefixes, suffixes, and names that will appear on a lane and determine what spawns from it. Bosses are not affected by special spawning conditions.

The first category determines what type of non-chaos monsters will spawn.

Fodder

Any monsters can spawn in this lane.

Wompers

Only melee monsters can spawn here, like Warboars and Orcs.

Throwers

Only ranged monsters can spawn here, like Javelin Throwers and Drakins.

Healers

Dark Mages will spawn here.

Crippling

Wither Beasts will spawn here.

The following will determine what chaos monsters will spawn. The prefixes/suffixes/names must be listed in a lane in order for said monster to spawn:

Vanguard / -Guard

Vanguards will spawn from this lane. Cannonball Towers, Poison Dart Towers, and other projectile-based towers will not be very effective against them in these lanes. Consider using traps, auras, AOE towers, or even Earthshatter Towers if you need long-range targeting.

Cy-

Cyborks will appear. Auras, traps, and nodes used in this lane are at risk of being disabled. If you wish to use any of them, a tenacity servo can help mitigate stuns.

Geo-

Geodes will spawn here. They protect all enemies within its barrier from projectile attacks. Counter them in a similar way that you would deal with vanguards.

Zerker-

Berserker Orcs will charge out of the lane and will usually run in front of the pack. It is fairly common for them to escape crowd control builds and leak through your defenses. Cannonball Towers are a great method for dealing with leaks.

Stabby-

This only appears in a flyer lane. Dark Assassins will spawn and try to assassinate you. They never appear alone in a flyer lane, so don't ignore anti-air defenses!

Hex-

Hex Throwers will appear. These guys are great at sniping your towers, and in some maps, can even snipe a core or sub-objective from the spawn. A Reflect Beam is great at protecting anything vulnerable to snipers, and can also cause them to waste time trying to pick off their target.

EMP-

These guys also only appear in flyer lanes. Just like Kobold Flyers, Kobolts will attempt to dive-bomb any nearby defenses or anything if their health drops too low. Traps, auras, and nodes cannot be stunned by kobolts, but multiple Sky Guard Towers can take them out before they have the chance to dive-bomb. Extra range on your sky guards can reduce the chance of a successful dive-bomb attempt.

Frosty-

Any frost enemies can be seen here. This will only appear around floor 30 and beyond. The Yeti incursion will introduce you to these mobs.

Lava-

Lava Guardians will spawn here. This also only appears around floor 30+. If you are having trouble dealing with these guys, they can also be found in the Demon Lord incursion.

The third category contains names that appear in flyer lanes:

Dargons

Wyverns will spawn here. If the name were corrected to "dragons", these lanes would probably be a lot scarier.

Zappers

Lightning Bugs will appear. They prefer to destroy your towers and blockades rather than head straight for your cores.

Kami- / Kamikaze

Kobold Flyers will spawn and attempt to dive-bomb your defenses.

The last category has special names that heavily change spawning conditions for the lane. None of the names above will be combined with any of these names:

Floppy Arms and Pig Bois

Only Goblin enemies and Warboars will appear here. This name is usually only present in lower-level floors of Onslaught.

Air Raid

Hence the name, this will only appear in flyer lanes. This causes all types of enemies to spawn - usually in a larger quantity than usual. Heavy anti-air is highly recommended, but careful not to spend too many Defense Units!

Orcish Horde

Any assortment of mobs can spawn here, but only if they're orcs. This ranges from regular orcs to Cyborks to Berserker Orcs. The anti-orc or orc-boom servos are great counters for these lanes.

Dreadbones' Crew

A random assortment of monsters will spawn with pirate outfits. Captain Dreadbones will also spawn here every wave.

Timmy's Revenge

A random assortment of monsters will spawn. Timmy also spawns once every wave.

Game Ogre

Only Ogres will spawn in this lane. Unlike most ogres, these guys can range from smaller ogres to regular-sized ogres. Because nothing else spawns in this lane, Cannonball Towers or other single-targeting defenses work well.

Just Timmy

Timmy spawns multiple times. Just like with Game-Ogre, single-targeting defenses are great for handling this lane.

Lane Mutators

WIP :(

History

Onslaught was taken out of the game during the Trials update. Onslaught has been brought back with the recent update

From the 19.0 Patch notes, "Onslaught is finally taking the rest we’ve been talking about. In the future, we have plans for an Onslaught revamp or for a new system to take its place. It shall be reborn!"