Difficulties are settings that adjust the game's overall experience. In general, it affects the color, stats and quantity of enemies, the overall quality of loot and the amount of experience points heroes earn.
Players who are new to Dungeon Defenders should first play through the Classic Campaign on Easy, Medium or Hard, then work their way up. Insane and above have additional changes beyond improving enemy stats and rewards.
| Easy |
| Medium |
| Hard |
| Insane |
| Nightmare (PC Only) |
| Ruthless (PC Only) |
| Ascension (Redux Only) |
| Insane+ (Console Only) |
Insane[]
- Eternia Crystals do not heal between waves. They still get healed prior to a boss fight, but not on some Lost Quest maps.
- The following two changes do not apply to Survival Mode or Pure Strategy:
- Each Build Phase is on a forced timer before the next Combat Phase starts automatically.
- Hero Casting Rate is not increased during Build Phases.
Insane+ ( Console Only )[]
Main Article: Insane+ Difficulty
The difference between Insane & Insane+ are way greater compared to the jump from Hard to Insane difficulty. Nightmare enemies do not spawn on this difficulty level at all.
- Enemies gain a large health buff, damage buff, give x2.5 more score when defeated.
- Crystal's get double the health, ( Enemy Crystals are not affected).
- Player health / damage / resistances are not affected or decreased & projectile speed is not affected.
- Defenses do not gain any multipliers to their health or damage.
- Tavern keeper gives a x2.5 score multiplier when the exp bonus is bought.
- Time bonus and wave completion scores get a x2.5 multiplier on them.
- Loot quality is increased & tavern keeper shop items quality increased, this also applies to wave 15 / 25 pet awards & challenge awards.
- Contains a lot of the gameplay changes that are in regular Insane difficulty.
Nightmare (NM)[]
Main Article: Nightmare (Difficulty)
The differences between Insane and Nightmare are far greater than Hard vs. Insane. Ogres are significantly more common. Spiders, Djinn and Sharken will spawn on almost all maps. Goblin Copters spawn on most maps that have Wyverns. Nightmare also modifies the stats of heroes, pets and defenses. Below are a few notable examples:
- Hero weapons and abilities deal less damage, but pets and defenses hit harder than usual.
- All heroes, physical defenses and Eternia Crystals have their maximum health scaled up. The potency of Healing Auras and health-restoring pets (barring Mage Minions whose healing is already percent-based) is increased to account for this.
- Damage Resistances from equipment are reduced by 0.55x; a sum of 164% is now required in order to reach the 90% cap per damage type.
- Auras have 15% shorter lifespans and 30% less range. The potencies for Ensnare, Strength Drain and Enrage Auras are nerfed by a factor of 0.75x. More Aura Effect Strength and/or damage buffs is/are needed the reach the Ensnare and Enrage caps and return Strength Drains to respectable levels (around 0.25x enemy damage after upgrades to it and a touching buff beam).
Insane+ is the Nightmare equivalent on console versions with different mechanics.
Ruthless Difficulty[]
Main Article: Ruthless (Difficulty)
Ruthless was introduced in Patch 9.5.0.
Ascension (Redux Exclusive)[]
Main Article: Ascension (Difficulty)
Ascension is an even higher difficulty level introduced in Dungeon Defenders Redux. It makes a variety of missions on-par with endgame progression, building off of the Final Update to the Vanilla PC game in November 2019. Many missions on this difficulty feature Cyclopes, a terracotta-colored Ogre variant that tosses snot bubbles instead of opaque balls. The lingering damage overtime on impact can be deadly to heroes and summoned minions.
Unlike Nightmare, Ascension mostly applies balance changes to how certain boss fights and challenges play out, rather than altering heroes and defenses directly. For example:
- The 20 Series EVs fought during the Lab Assault challenge will teleport if they fall off the map. This prevents players from exploiting their AI to an easy victory.
- The last two waves of Raining Goblins feature Harbingers. The Goblins and Orcs are also immune to Gas Traps, regardless of elemental affinity.
- In assault challenges, pets that heal heroes restore far less HP at a time.