The Hive 5-skulls

Check out this thread.

Thanks Wyatan for linking to the 5 Skull Guide :).
 
For my take on The Hive I figured out a fairly reliable strategy using a single killbox on each side.  The only real difficulty is remembering to avoid the Lightning bats and protecting guardians on the side that is exposed to fliers. Gotta say I love the Missile Launcher for this level: Stun for heavies, explosions for crowd control and flack for fliers.

I'm afraid I'm no good at NM so I've not tested the setup.  I imagine the Decoys would get blitzed by the extra heavies and the killbox would be overrun but it may work with some tweaking.

Nice run. Good on the par time. I would recommend not building so heavy at the bottom, but really spread it all along the way down. Just put a few archers down near the rift (usually 4 on each side). Stagger them so they don't shoot all at once at the same enemy, and all its buddies behind run right past as the archers refill on arrows. And don't worry so much about goblin sappers; 99% of the time they won't go for the rift. They just cross over the bottom to get your traps on the other side.
 
I notice you rarely used the coin trinket's active ability. That gives you 50% more coin while active (glow). Or the mana rage trinket for that matter (chain lightning galore!). But yeah, I would recommend using coinforge with the additional damage upgrade instead, and replace the wall spikes with zappers upgraded to stun. Just place arrow wals and zappers overlapping coinforges down both ramps (otherwise they are less effective), with some schorchers where ever you can fit them behind the coinforges preferably.

Coinforge, Coin Trinket and if you can Boulder Chute and Ceiling Pounder with coin are a must imo for 5 skulling. 

You want two kill zones generally when five skulling and this is where most people have problems. See with comboing you want as much control as possible. And a lot of the tactics are based around these tactics. Five skulling needs a different mentality.
 
Zone 1: The thin zone.

The thin zone will kill as many things as possible. It's not just for damage, it's for ransacking whatever it can. This is your failure zone. Expect things to jam, bug out, wig out, be out of sync the whole lot because this doesn't matter. You just want to do damage, thin the numbers and generally get as much damage in through the thin zone as possible. The thin zone also gives you leeway to adjust your PAR time. Are you running over par? Increase the damage in your thin zone. Running drastically under par but letting some through? You can lay off your thin zone some. 
 
Remember that afflictions slow things down. So if you want to group things up - just using the slow affliction isn't necessary. Fire and Chill ALSO have slow on them and anything afflicted with these will take damage and bunch up some more. If your running hot on par time. It's time to try removing the overload of the afflictions.
 
Zone 2: The kill zone.

This is your theoretical best setup. You want high damage with traps that don't jam. At this point you just want death. Getting creative can be nice and grinder if your thin zone is strong enough can keep up with the flow. But at this point I would apply generic simple brute force. You want to get fire in there for the slow, possibly a slow - and enough heavy horsepower with as little reset as possible in this zone. This is your final line and you want anything that's an ogre stopper especially to be in this zone. This is your final line of defence.
 
 
So, this is all logical stuff? Right?:

Not really - see a lot of people throw traps in any which way they can. They have the 2 traps on the floor, 2 on the walls and they try and do single point damage. The problem with this is you're not spreading out the damage across many targets. Your running all your kill zone cooldowns on one area. The first guy that walks in gets wailed on and everything else gets through scott free. Damage needs to be layered across an area. If you're setting up a thin zone smaller than atleast 4 wall traps either horrizontal or along a wall with a spread of floor traps; your thin zone is too small. You should be able to drop a coin forge with increased damage and throw down grinders and such along it to thin out the horde.
 

You don't have to cover everything:

A lot of people try and cover the entire area along a breech. This is horribly wrong in so many ways. Let's assume that they are running along a 3 wide corridor. You've got walls on the left and a cliff face on the right. This is ideal positioning for a grinder because it does not reach the whole way across. You do not want the grinder to catch everyhthig on the way through. You want to have it do damage to as many singular creatures as possible. By overloading the grinder you're going to do less damage. By using it as a thinning process and allowing things to pass you're getting the most out of the grinder because it's killing and damaging a large amount of creatures that pass through without overloading. The ones that get through will get caught by your next set of traps.
 
Overcreativity is a flaw:
 
Mixing traps is not necessarily a good idea in five skulling. Rather than overthinking it much like what there is in comboing where we devise clever ways to do things; a different approach is necessary. In this particular case you don't need to think so much about the damage of the traps as you do the reach, the design, the longevity of its damage over time, the distance it will hit and how many things you can cram into its damage zone at any given time. Once you find the most efficient trap for a location spam that trap. If a grinder works great in an area as a single repeat that setup all the way down the corridor. If a slow trap to pounder works, set up multiple choke points. Remember you're going for as much damage as fast as possible.
 
Approach it like comboing:

Comboing takes a tactical approach. Things take time and not everything slots into place first time through. A lot of people here immediately shun the comboing tactics saying 'we don't want to combo' and 'what if I don't want to do combos'. Truth is you don't have to; but the tactics are extremely valid for five skulling. The combo tactics take total control over a map and enforce maximum control with minimal control ability. In a five skull scenario you are far less restricted. A windbelt with a mana trinket and a mana well can be extremely potent at killing huge waves of creatures. The restriction is really the player. I often see people say 'I want to set up traps and let the traps do all the work'. That's a down fall. Use every tool in your arsenal.
 
 
Well that's my super quick assist. I'm sure someone will come along quote a bunch of crap and say how logical it all is - but I promise you if you use just a few of the tips I just gave things will be that much easier.
 
 

Very nice work. My only criticism is your emphasis on setting up around the rift. I understand this is for catching things that get past but with an almost 2000 credit balance throughout the video that is 4 arrow walls you can place along the stairways. They aren't necesssarily there to kill anything - only thin out the damage. You'll find yourself able to electrocute entire hordes.
 
Otherwise very impressive. I'd switch Xbow for Vamp Gauntlets which require some practice too.