The “FreeUp Orbless to X” strategy is an amazing strategy that is not only extremely AFK-friendly, but also extremely flexible and which results in greater coin gains than most conventional strategies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFLWdUkgrsA&lc=UgyEYquXu73qSAqruKV4AaABAg&ab_channel=JPlays

PS!

This is a detailed video and with lots of text information below. If you instead just want a simpler overview of FreeUp Orbless, see The FreeUp Orbless Strategy created by Garkyn.

Text Version

Before we get started, as always, this may not be the strategy for you as there are so many variables in the game, and depending on your Lab, Cards, Ultimate Weapons , Modules and so forth, the exact scenario can look quite different - but I've tried to address most of these cases as well as I can. And for the various scenarios that I may not have covered, feel free to ask in the video comments.

I am not going to go into too much depths about what Devo is, and if you want a deeper introduction to that, check out my previous Orb Devo guide (Orb Devo Guide for Increased Coin Gain & Progression).

Some Definitions of Sorts

But I think it’s important that we just get some key rough definitions out of the way first, just to ensure that we’re all on the same page:

Often when we think of this game, there are two key ways we define our approach and stage of the game: via overall builds, and via devo vs blender.

  1. Builds
    1. Effective Health (eHP)/health-build: Is a term used by the community that refers to reliance towards aspects of health (e.g., Tower Health, Wall Health, Death Wave Health) , regen (e.g., Health Regen/Wall Regen), and your defense (e.g., Defense %, Defense Absolute), that helps ensure your survivability. An eHP-build would usually be one that relies on health, and thorns and orbs for killing (such as Orb Devo, Turtle and early stages of Blender). And sometimes the easiest way to define eHP is to define what it isn’t, and it is not Glass Cannon.
    2. Glass Cannon/damage builds: So what is a damage-build/Glass Cannon (GC)? Well, it’s a build where eHP and health stops mattering and you could in theory run with one single 1HP as you are killing all enemies before they ever reach you. It basically refers to late game builds and strategies where your health stops mattering and you are instead solely focused on damage and crowd control, and with extra reliance on Energy Shields, Death Defy and other methods to stay alive. And, importantly, this Glass Cannon could also be in the form of Blender, and various devo strategies).
    3. Hybrid: A combination of the eHP and GC, often as a transition towards GC builds
  2. Devo vs Blender

    1. Devo: Shortly put, any devo strategy means you are devolving certain parts of your tower to carry out specific strategies. This usually means leaving some workshop stats at level 0, and often also includes turning off some ultimate weapons. And the three main broad devo strategies are Orb Devo, Orbless and Max Devo.

      1. Orbless: While there are many variations of Orbless strategies, it essentially refers to juggling enemies with bullets knockback and carefully adjusting damage so that we kill most enemies inside Spotlight. In other words, we are mostly concerned about WHERE we kill. And because damage needs to be adjusted as the enemies strength increases, it can often be a quite hands-on approach with a lot of micro management. It is also usually a transition from eHP builds, to hybrid and Glass Cannon builds.
      2. Orb Devo: And then we have Orb Devo, which is the most beginner-friendly devo strategy and which require less micro management and which generally is more eHP or health-focused. In Orb Devo you let enemies hug your Wall or Tower, and then you pull these out into your Black Hole and kill the enemies with Orbs while all your econ Ultimate Weapons are active. And so the main focus here lies on killing with orbs.
      3. Max Devo: There are also so-called “Max Devo” strategies, but for simplicity we are not diving deep into that in today’s video, but with max devo strategies you concerned with killing at specific times with relevant Ultimate Weapons damage, such as SMax where you would sync your Smart Missiles to have the same cooldown as your Black Hole & Golden Tower sync.

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    2. Blender: And in terms of non-devo strategies, basically the opposite of Devo is Blender - which refers to just simply maxing everything in your workshop and your ultimate weapons, which is very AFK-friendly where you can just click and forget, but at the cost of less coin gains. And, as for whether your Blender build is an health, hybrid or glass cannon, will largely just depend on your tower strength and stage of the game.

But, while devo strategies generally greatly outperforms blender, one of the issues with devo strategies for many is that they require too much monitoring and micro management.

Luckily, this is where today’s strategy “FreeUp Orbless to X” comes in.

It combines the best of all worlds: