#1) Use the lock. It's an easy feature to neglect, and it's extremely powerful. If you've got cheap rerolls left but not much money, just give it a roll and lock anything you want to buy next time.

#2) You need enough DPS to keep your tower clear of enemies so that you're only taking occasional damage. If you're getting mobbed on your tower focus on DPS because no amount of defense will let you survive that.

#3) You can set your skills to auto. While playing, click one of your skills in the bottom left. Slide the top slider over to "When ready", and set the priorities to your preferences. Also check "Supply".

#4) The pickups that change the color of your skill (e.g., Timer Bomb+) are great. The cheap ones that just "extend it slightly" (Skill Enhancements) aren't great, so only pick them for your 'First skill', which has a short cooldown. Keep an eye out for ones that add new features to your skills (Skill Traits). E.g., "Breakthrough" for the Outbreak skill make it so that when it destroys an enemy, the projectile keeps going with the same damage.

#5) Don't spend TOO much on rerolling. Just do a few then move on.

If you're struggling, here is a beginner build: Amplify your tower attacks in every possible way. Use abilities that scale off tower damage, take every upgrade that amplifies or increases your tower DPS.

• Pick the 'Montz' tower.
  
• Start with either Outbreak or Timer bomb and pick up the one you didn't start with ASAP. Third skill slot doesn't matter as much. There's a pickup that removes that slot, which is fine. Otherwise just pick something else that'll amp your damage like Land Mines or Infection.
  
• Your stat priority for DPS is: 1) Tower bullet damage, 2) Tower fire rate, 3) Misc skill boosts. Try to get a mix of +bullet damage and +fire rate.
  
• Grab every "INTEU" you can as long as it doesn't drop your Tower damage below 1. INTEU increases the number of targets your tower can fire at at once, but gives -4 damage. This means the higher your tower damage is, the more these amplify your DPS/fire rate.
  
• Pickups that add a 2% chance to pierce, freeze, lightning, or infect targets hit by your bullets are useless at first, but the further in you get the more valuable they become because of the sheer volume of bullets you'll be firing.
  
• Dump melee damage, element, support, crit chance, and projectile dodge. Take negatives in these whenever you need to. These can be -50 and it won't matter. You can also dump any "hp from supplies", you'll be using HP Regen instead.
  
• Don't neglect defense. Try to get a steady trickle of Max HP, HP Regen, and Armor. The ratio I aim for is ROUGHLY 6:2:1. E.g., 100hp, 33 regen, 15 armor.
  
• Especially early on, if you find that you're dominating try to pick up +Money%. Luck is good but not mandatory. And XP is just okay. Try not to have negative Luck or XP.
  
• "Tower range" pickups are up to you. Personally I don't focus on it, but good to have. And I personally don't bother with anything that's "+ random stat, - random stat". Doesn't seem worth the gamble. The "double a random stat" is occasionally amazing though.

Example stats at Wave 12. I have x3 INTEU (the multi-target artifact) vs.
Example stats after final round. Still only x3 INTEU



































Finally, here's my full stat page after winning hostility 5:

Because talents are with you from the beginning of a match, pick stats that are the best to get early. You can reset any time for free, so don't stress about your choices.

My personal preferences:

Primary:
1x Armor
1x HP Regen
1x Tower bullet damage
2x % Money

Secondary:
1x Max HP
1x Tower fire rate

After that, just prioritize them in roughly that ratio. Adding 1 into each of the Primaries (x2 in % Money), then 1 into each Secondary.

As an example, here is how mine looks at the time of posting this:

With the 'Montz' tower that lets me start with a 45% Money boost.