The Forge Rune Guide (January 2026) All Combos & Find Tips
If you’re diving into The Forge and wondering how to unlock the game’s true potential, I’ve got you covered. Runes…
Starting your journey in Universal Tower Defense can feel overwhelming with so many systems, units, and mechanics to learn. This comprehensive guide will walk you through everything you need to know as a new player, from picking your first character to mastering advanced strategies that will help you dominate every wave.
Universal Tower Defense (UTD) is one of the most visually impressive anime tower defense games on Roblox right now. With its gacha summoning system, unit evolution mechanics, etherealization features, and multiple game modes, there’s a lot to unpack. I’ve spent countless hours testing strategies and grinding through the early game, and I’m here to share exactly what works.
| Quick Reference | Details |
|---|---|
| Game Genre | Anime Tower Defense with Gacha Elements |
| Best Starter Units | Luffy, Naruto, or Goku (all viable) |
| Main Currency | Gems (for summoning), Yen (in-match upgrades) |
| Key Features | Story Mode, Challenges, Virtual Realm, Raids |
| Active Codes | SorryEA! (100x Trait Rerolls), SorryEA2! (5k Gems) |
Universal Tower Defense combines strategic tower placement with anime gacha mechanics. Your goal is simple: place units along the enemy path, upgrade them during battles, and prevent enemies from reaching your base. What makes UTD special is how each unit has unique abilities, attack patterns, and upgrade paths that completely change how they perform.
The game operates on a wave-based system where enemies get progressively harder. You earn yen during each match to upgrade your units, and completing stages rewards you with gems, relics, and materials for permanent upgrades. Think of it as a mix between traditional tower defense strategy and RPG character progression.
When you first load into Universal Tower Defense, you’ll pick between three iconic anime characters: Luffy, Naruto, or Goku. Here’s the truth that many guides won’t tell you: all three starters are equally viable for clearing early content. The difference comes down to personal preference and which anime you enjoy most.
Your starter unit will carry you through Act 1 of Story Mode without any issues. They all have solid base damage, decent range, and unlock powerful abilities as you upgrade them during battle. Don’t stress about picking the “meta” choice focus on the character you’re most excited to play.
That said, your starter becomes less critical once you start summoning better units from the banner. By the time you reach Chapter 2 or 3, you’ll likely have pulled rare or epic units that outperform your starter. View your starter as a reliable foundation, not your endgame carry.
The lobby in Universal Tower Defense isn’t just a menu it’s a fully interactive hub with multiple buildings and NPCs. Take five minutes to explore because understanding where everything is will save you time later.
Key locations you need to know:
Banner Hall: This is where you summon new units using gems. The banner shows exact pull rates, which is refreshingly transparent. You’ll spend most of your gems here trying to build a strong roster.
Trait Station: Here you can reroll traits on your units using trait rerolls. Traits are passive bonuses that significantly boost unit performance. Don’t waste trait rerolls early save them for your best units.
Evolution Area: Once you collect the right materials, you can evolve units here for massive stat increases and new abilities. Evolution is one of the most impactful progression systems in the game.
Police Station and Other Buildings: These often contain NPCs who explain game systems or offer daily rewards. Check them periodically for free resources.
The lobby also has level milestone rewards scattered around. As you level up your account, return to the lobby to claim free gems, trait rerolls, and other valuable items.
After you’ve completed the tutorial, your first priority is summoning additional units. Your starter alone won’t cut it for long you need a diverse roster to handle different enemy types and map layouts.
The summoning system uses gems, which you earn from completing stages, daily login rewards, and redeeming codes. The banner includes multiple rarity tiers:
When you’re just starting out, even rare and epic pulls will significantly strengthen your team. Don’t chase mythic units exclusively many epic units remain relevant throughout the entire game when properly upgraded and evolved.
A smart summoning strategy is to do 10-pulls whenever possible since many gacha games offer better rates for multi-summons. Save your gems until you have enough for a full 10-pull rather than doing single summons repeatedly.
Team composition matters more than raw unit rarity in Universal Tower Defense. A well-balanced team of epic units will outperform a random collection of mythics every time.
Here’s the team structure that works best for beginners:
Primary DPS Unit: This is your main damage dealer. Place them in a central location where they can hit as many enemy waves as possible. Your starter often fills this role initially.
AOE (Area of Effect) Unit: These units hit multiple enemies at once, making them invaluable for clearing large waves. Look for units with circle or full AOE patterns.
Support/Money Unit: Units like Nami generate extra yen during matches, letting you upgrade your team faster. These are incredibly valuable for harder content.
Hybrid or Secondary DPS: A flexible unit that can handle both ground and air enemies or provide additional damage where needed.
For early Story Mode (Acts 1-3), you can clear stages with just your starter plus one or two decent pulls. Don’t overcomplicate team building at first focus on understanding how each unit works and what their upgrade path looks like.
Traits are one of the most impactful but confusing systems for new players. Every unit has traits that provide passive bonuses like increased damage, faster cooldowns, reduced upgrade costs, or extended range.
Traits come in different rarities:
You can reroll traits using trait reroll items, which you get from codes, events, and gameplay. Here’s the key insight: don’t waste trait rerolls on common or rare units. Save them for your mythic and secret units where the investment pays off long-term.
Good traits for beginners include anything that boosts damage or reduces cooldowns. Specialized traits like “bonus damage to bosses” or “extra range” become more valuable as you progress into harder content.
Each unit has three main stats you can customize: damage, cooldown reduction, and range. When you level up a unit, you get stat points to distribute among these categories.
For most units, especially early on, prioritize this order:
There are exceptions support units benefit more from cooldown reduction, and units with naturally high attack speed might prefer damage stacking. Experiment and see what feels best for your playstyle.
During battle, units also gain levels through in-match upgrades using yen. Each upgrade unlocks new abilities or increases existing ones. Your first few upgrades are cheap and provide massive power spikes always prioritize upgrading your main DPS units to level 2 or 3 before spreading yen elsewhere.
Story Mode is where every new player should start. It teaches you game mechanics, rewards you with gems and materials, and gradually increases difficulty so you learn proper unit placement and upgrade timing.
Act 1 is extremely forgiving. You can beat most stages with just your starter unit and one additional summon. Place your units near the spawn point where enemies enter, upgrade them as you earn yen, and you’ll breeze through.
Act 2 introduces stronger enemies and more complex map layouts. This is where team composition starts mattering. Bring at least three units and make sure one has AOE capabilities to handle grouped enemies.
Act 3 and beyond require strategic thinking. You’ll face tanky enemies, fast-moving units, and bosses with special mechanics. This is where traits, proper stat allocation, and evolved units make a real difference.
Pro tip: Always complete Story Mode on normal difficulty first before attempting challenge modes. The material and gem rewards are identical, so there’s no benefit to struggling through harder difficulties until your roster is stronger.
One setting change will dramatically improve your early game experience: enable Auto Skip. This feature is hidden in the settings menu but speeds up wave transitions, letting you complete stages faster and earn more rewards per hour.
Auto Skip doesn’t make the game play for you it just removes the waiting time between waves. You still need to place units, upgrade them, and make strategic decisions. It’s purely a quality-of-life improvement that every player should enable immediately.
Other useful settings include adjusting UI size if elements feel cluttered, enabling ability animations if you want to see unit effects, and adjusting sound if the music becomes repetitive. Take two minutes to customize these settings for the best experience.
How you spend yen during battles often determines victory or defeat. Many new players make the mistake of spreading yen too thin upgrading every unit a little instead of powering up their carry units significantly.
Follow this upgrade priority:
In early waves, you won’t have much yen, so place only 2-3 units and focus on upgrading them. As you progress and earn more yen per wave, you can place additional units or upgrade existing ones further.
Advanced players manipulate upgrade timing to maximize efficiency for example, placing a money unit early but not upgrading other units until the money unit has generated enough yen for multiple upgrades at once.
Universal Tower Defense features multiple damage types that interact differently with various enemy types. While this won’t matter much in early content, understanding these mechanics helps later.
Common damage types include:
Some units apply these effects passively through traits or unlock them through upgrades. Pay attention to what your units do if an enemy seems resistant to one unit’s attacks, switch to a different damage type.
Boss enemies often have unique mechanics that require specific strategies. Some are immune to crowd control, others spawn minions that need clearing, and some have phases that change their vulnerability. Learn these patterns through experience.
Evolution is one of the most powerful progression systems in UTD but requires specific materials. You obtain evolution materials by clearing harder stages, completing challenges, and participating in raids.
Not every unit can evolve, and those that can require different materials. Check the Evolution Area to see which units have evolution options and what materials they need. Prioritize evolving your most-used units first evolution provides massive stat increases and often unlocks new abilities.
Etherealization is an even more advanced system that further powers up evolved units. Think of it as evolution 2.0. This system becomes relevant in late-game content, so new players shouldn’t stress about it yet. Focus on getting your first few units evolved before worrying about etherealization.
Once you’ve progressed through a few Story chapters, other game modes unlock:
Challenges: These are Story stages with special conditions like “only 3 units allowed” or “starting yen reduced by 50%”. They’re significantly harder but reward better loot. Only attempt these once your units are well-developed.
Virtual Realm: A unique mode with different gameplay experiences and rotating modifiers. Great for breaking up the Story grind and earning different types of rewards.
Raids: Cooperative multiplayer where you team up with other players to defeat powerful bosses. This is endgame content that requires strong units and good teamwork. Join the Discord to find raid groups.
Endless Mode (if available): Survive as many waves as possible with increasing difficulty. Perfect for testing new team compositions and earning rewards based on how far you survive.
Universal Tower Defense has an active code system that provides free gems, trait rerolls, and other valuable resources. Since the game just launched in early access, codes are currently very generous.
Active Codes (December 2025):
| Code | Rewards |
|---|---|
| SorryEA! | 100x Trait Rerolls |
| SorryEA2! | 5,000 Gems |
To redeem codes:
New codes release regularly through the official Discord server and the game’s social media. Check back frequently or bookmark code sites to stay updated. These free rewards significantly accelerate early progression, especially the gems for summoning.
Upgrading Too Many Units at Once: Focus your yen on 2-3 strong units rather than spreading it across your entire team. Quality over quantity wins battles.
Ignoring Traits: Traits provide massive bonuses but many players forget about them. Always check new unit traits and reroll your best units when possible.
Poor Unit Placement: Position matters enormously. Units at the start of the path get more time to damage enemies, while units at turns can hit more enemies. Experiment with placement.
Wasting Gems on Single Pulls: Always save for 10-pulls instead of spending gems on individual summons. The rates are better and you’re guaranteed at least one decent unit.
Not Using Auto Skip: This quality-of-life feature saves hours of playtime. Enable it immediately in settings.
Attempting Challenge Modes Too Early: Story Mode rewards are identical on normal and challenge difficulties. Clear normal first to strengthen your roster.
Neglecting Money Units: Support units that generate yen seem weak but they multiply your team’s overall power by enabling faster upgrades. Always include one in harder content.
Gems are your most valuable resource as a new player. Here’s how to spend them wisely:
Never spend gems on cosmetics until you have a strong team of 6-8 well-developed units. Fashion can wait power cannot.
Trait rerolls should be hoarded for mythic and secret rarity units. Using them on common units is wasteful since you’ll replace those units quickly anyway.
Evolution materials are scarce early on. Don’t evolve your starter unit just because you can save those materials for better units you’ll pull from the banner.
Universal Tower Defense has active communities on Discord, Reddit, and YouTube. The official Discord is especially valuable because:
The UTD Trello board contains detailed information about units, stats, and game mechanics. While it’s not required reading, consulting it when you have specific questions about unit capabilities or evolution requirements saves time.
Once you understand the basics, these strategies will accelerate your growth:
Farm Story Stages on Auto Skip: Replay earlier stages you’ve already completed for material drops. Auto Skip makes this less tedious.
Focus on One Strong DPS First: Rather than developing your entire roster evenly, max out one carry unit. A single overpowered unit beats six mediocre ones.
Learn Map Patterns: Each map has optimal unit placement spots. Units on hills often have extended range, corners let units hit more enemies, and central positions maximize AOE coverage.
Watch for Update Notifications: Codes often release during updates or events. Enable game notifications so you never miss free rewards.
Experiment During Easy Stages: Early Story stages are perfect for testing new units and team compositions without penalty. Use them as a training ground.
Join Raids As Soon As Available: Even if you’re undergeared, joining raids with experienced players exposes you to endgame mechanics and rewards. Most raid groups don’t mind carrying one weaker player.
All three starter options Luffy, Naruto, and Goku are equally viable for early game progression. Pick whichever character you enjoy most from anime. Your starter will carry you through Act 1 easily, and by the time you reach mid-game content, you’ll have pulled stronger units from the summoning banner that will replace your starter in your main team composition.
You earn gems primarily by completing Story Mode stages, claiming daily login rewards, reaching account level milestones, and redeeming active codes. The current active codes SorryEA! and SorryEA2! provide 5,000 free gems. Additionally, participating in limited-time events and challenges often rewards bonus gems. Focus on progressing through Story Mode first as it provides the most consistent gem income for new players.
Wait until you’ve pulled at least one epic or mythic rarity unit before spending evolution materials. Your starter unit and common pulls will be replaced relatively quickly, so evolving them wastes valuable materials. Evolution materials are scarce early on, so prioritize evolving your best DPS unit first usually a mythic with good traits. Only evolve units you plan to use long-term in your main team composition.
Traits are passive bonuses that increase unit performance through buffs like extra damage, reduced cooldowns, extended range, or cost reduction. Each unit has traits with varying rarities from common to legendary. Higher rarity traits provide stronger bonuses. You can reroll traits using trait reroll items obtained from codes and gameplay, but save these rerolls for your best mythic and secret rarity units where the investment provides long-term value.
Universal Tower Defense is primarily free-to-play friendly with generous code rewards and reasonable progression. While spending money can accelerate your progress through gem purchases, the game provides enough free gems and resources that patient players can build strong teams without spending. The gacha system does favor lucky pulls, but even epic rarity units remain viable throughout most content when properly upgraded and evolved.
New players should focus exclusively on Story Mode for the first few days. Story Mode teaches core mechanics, rewards gems and evolution materials, and gradually increases difficulty appropriately. Once you’ve cleared Act 2 or 3, you can branch into Challenges for extra rewards, though these require stronger units. Save Raids and Endless Mode for after you have several well-developed evolved units with good traits.
Launch Universal Tower Defense on Roblox, then click the Codes button located on the right side of the screen. Enter the code exactly as shown, paying attention to capitalization and special characters. Click Redeem to receive your rewards. Codes are case-sensitive and time-limited, so redeem them as soon as possible. Check the official Discord server regularly for new code releases.
Universal Tower Defense combines strategic depth with anime fan service in a way that few Roblox tower defense games achieve. Your journey from complete beginner to experienced player revolves around smart summoning decisions, strategic unit upgrades, and learning the nuances of each game mode.
Start by choosing your favorite starter unit, summoning a diverse roster with your early gems, and progressing through Story Mode at a comfortable pace. Don’t stress about perfect traits or mythic units immediately solid epics with good upgrade paths will carry you surprisingly far.
The most important advice I can give is to enable Auto Skip, redeem all active codes, and join the Discord community. These three actions alone will accelerate your progression more than any specific unit or strategy.
Save this guide for quick reference as you play. Universal Tower Defense has depth that reveals itself gradually, and returning to these fundamentals when you feel stuck will usually solve whatever problem you’re facing. Good luck defending your tower, and remember every wave cleared is progress toward building your ultimate anime dream team.
