How can we be effective with the Huntress in Dungeon Defenders?

Solution 1:

I was playing in a 3-man group last night: Squire, Huntress, and Monk. We set up the same defenses on all 3 entrance points to the map. Squire walls with Huntress proximity/inferno traps in front, and whatever auras the Monk felt like using (not important to this example).

When the waves came, each of us defended one section. The Squire and Huntress spent most of their time repairing defenses (especially the Huntress's traps, which replenishes the quantity), and the Monk spent all his time fighting the enemies. The end result was that the Monk had the most kills, but let all his defenses die and leaked enemies through to the crystal.

The Huntress and Squire, by comparison, had no trouble holding off all the enemies, and the Squire even held off the Ogre. The Monk was not a team player, and leaked because he didn't repair the Huntress traps. The Squire kept the Huntress traps replenished and didn't even break a sweat.

tl;dr: The key to playing Huntress effectively is to have your teammates repair your traps. I'm pretty sure that's the crux of it.

Solution 2:

The huntress is actually the strongest character in the game. My squire does 100k DPS; my huntress does 150k ranged+piercing DPS (including piercing-shot), and my friends do even more.

Here's how you create a strong huntress:

• Upgrade attack, movement speed, and piercing-shot as much as possible (70). Put the rest into casting rate and HP.
• Find a Van Wolfenstein with high (30+) max upgrades. You can earn one by beating the new halloween level on hard, or buying one from someone on the forums, the wiki-shops, or IRC.
• Upgrade it all the way. Put all points into attack, except when it lets you upgrade attack-rate or projectile-amount.
• Keep your eyes out for pristine armors with high max upgrades, putting points into attack and piercing-shot. Remember that wearing a full set of pristine (or any other type) of armor gives you bonuses.

Build strong towers with a squire and ensnare/strength-drain auras with a monk, but have everyone switch back to their huntresses before the round start, and beating The Summit on insane becomes a breeze.

Actually, there is a better weapon for the huntress than the Van Wolfenstein, but finding one with good base-stats and high max-level is extremely difficult. I forget the name, but it's the one you get for beating the second boss.

Ostensibly, its DPS is lower than the Van Wolfenstein, but it has a huge HUGE splash radius, meaning if you are lucky enough to get a good one, you will do much more damage overall than other huntresses.

Solution 3:

I went with the entirely different route from Strix. I found a nice and fast shooting gun with decent damage and went for a straight up DPS build. I mostly relied on gas traps to choke enemies as I plinked them down.

I may respec once I hit level 25 to take advantage of the engineer pet and its nice boost to trap duration as well as its repair traps ability.

During coop, I also found that the gas trap is very nice to place in front of high damage towers as it protects them very well. I did not like inferno traps as much since they are low durability (though I didn't invest any points into trap duration so that may affect it).

It is also import as I quickly found out that many monsters can have fire resistance, which made me a little less useful against those, but on most coop maps that I've played although I had the lowest tower kills, my hero kills were often the highest among the group.

Finally, don't forget to upgrade your weapon. Its definitely worth it for the first few levels as it greatly increases your dps for relatively low mana cost.

Since you now have tons of mana to spend due to not relying on towers as much, you can use it on repairs and upgrades of your ally's towers.

Oh, and one last thing.

I hear that the portal gun (huntress only) is so powerful that its almost game breaking, by making enemies walk in a loop in front of turrets until they die. Here's hoping that'll be the case once I finally reach level 30 :)

Solution 4:

My Huntress is level 21, and I don't have any issues about being outclassed compared to Monks and Wizards (I do feel the Squire is better, however).

Once you put a decent number of points into trap durability, they can last an entire wave without repair, or with very little repairing. Between my items and skill points I've got decent durability, range, and reset times. Proximity traps do great when combined with a wall (or a gas trap in a pinch). Once they get an upgrade or two, they can kill most mobs in one hit, or come very close. They also don't get destroyed by Ogres and Kobolds =)

As for the Huntress herself, she seems to be very dependent on having a good weapon. Get something with decent physical damage and a good rate of fire. Ammo count isn't important - smaller counts mean often but quick reloads. It can be nice to have a lot of ammo, but if you let it get to empty then reload, its going to take a long time. I've got one which deals 75 physical dmg per shot, with 4 shots per second (base stats). Its not quite on par with Squires, but I'm a lot more mobile and its good for rapidly killing stuff that gets through the defenses.

TL;DR: Put points in trap durability so you aren't stuck always repairing your traps. Use walls or gas traps to clump mobs together so proximity mines do more damage. Get a good bow - They can be harder to find than say, a sword for a squire, but once you get one you'll feel a lot more powerful.