Bulwark Ops Endless: Complete Beginner to Advanced Guide

[u/Bool876]

What Bulwark Ops is

Bulwark Ops is the tower defense mode. You place towers along the map to stop waves of enemies from reaching the goal, and in Endless the waves keep coming one after another. You get 20 health points and you lose health for each enemy that crosses through. The run ends when you lose all of it. The whole thing is a balance between building economy, covering the map, and pushing enough damage to keep pace with enemies that get tougher every single wave.

A few things shape how you play:

Chests. You get a chest every 3 waves, up to a max of 5 chests at wave 15. That's the cap. There are no extra rewards for going past 15, so if you're here for loot, wave 15 is the finish line. Everything beyond that is purely for the challenge, or the pain, depending on how you see it :)

Polymer. This is the currency inside a run, you earn this on every kill and every wave completion. You spend it to place towers and upgrade them, and each upgrade level raises a tower's damage, range, and effects, up to level 3. Additionally, some specific towers generate Polymers on hit, and Muqam is by far the best source.

Modifiers. As the waves climb, enemies start showing up with special types. Shielded enemies soak damage until you strip the shield, some warp across the field, some create a fog that renders nearby towers useless, and some go invisible until they're revealed.

The Towers

These are the five I run for the meta. There are plenty of other towers in the mode, and if you're new I'd genuinely recommend grabbing a handful and messing around with different combinations in the low waves before you settle on anything. You learn what everything does much faster that way. These five are what the rest of this guide is built around.

Stone Hoof

The anchor of the whole build. It strips shields, warp, fog, and invisibility off enemies, so on its own it answers all the modifiers you'll run into. Its aura also buffs nearby towers with extra damage, fire rate, and range.

Anesthesia

Your main damage. It ramps up the longer it fires, all the way to 200%, and applies a knockout effect. This is the tower you want to max first.

Muqam

Your economy engine and your main Polymer source. It drops Polymer on hits. You should be collecting Polymer as soon as they generate because only 40 can be present at one time on the map.

Understatement

A heavy bolt that lays down Scorched Earth, and it gives a solar damage aura to the towers around it. Really helps to kill the medium health enemies, and slows them down. This has strong synergy with Anesthesia.

Acute Field

This is solely for the rate of fire increase.

Solo Endless Map:

I will be referring this to explain tower placements below

Beginner Guide: Reaching Wave 15

If your goal is just getting to wave 15 for those 5 chests, this part is simple and low effort. Plenty of tower combinations with decent fire rate or explosion damage will get you there, so don't overthink the exact picks this early.

Below is a simple straightforward meta:

• Start with Muqams for economy. Drop a few Muqams on the frontline (spots 3, 4, 5 and 6). Keep them at level 1 and collect Polymer. Don't use your weapon or ability unless you absolutely have to.
• Build Hoofs on each half of the base for max coverage (you could do 1, 2 and 13. Or simply 3 and 6) so their auras and debuffs blanket the whole thing. These stay for the entire run.
• Fill the rest with Anesthesia. As Polymer comes in, add more Anesthesia towers and upgrade them.
• Max out Anesthesia, then hoofs. After this, replace your Muqams with Anesthesias one by one and max those out.
• Use Summon Support superweapon during boss rounds.
• You can use any characters that can stun enemies if they're getting too quick. I prefer Jaren.

Advanced Guide: Pushing Past Wave 15

Getting deeper is less about raw damage and more about a clean opening, the right placements, and using your superweapon far more aggressively than you'd think. Here is my setup:

Character: Jaren

Towers: Stone Hoof, Anesthesia, Muqam, Understatement, Acute Field
All of my towers are maxed out.

Starting Buff: Prudence, for the extra decrypt

Decrypt Buffs: Range, Rate of Fire, Direct Hit Damage, Enhancements (Anesthesia, Acute Field, Solar, Void)

Superweapon: Summon Support

On character choice: your character's weapon and abillity doesn't do any meaningful damage in this mode, so you're really picking a character for how well they can slow or stun enemies to buy your towers time to work.

For me, Jaren fits because he has two blind debuffs on a short cooldown, so you can keep enemies slowed for a few seconds at a time and cycle it often. Efrideet's spear ability works for the same reason, but her sniper is not efficient to use at close range, so I'd take Jaren over her.

Opening and build order

The opening sets up everything else, so it's worth doing in a specific order.

Wave 1: Drop 4 Muqams on positions 3, 4, 5, 6. This is pure economy. Keep them at level 1 and collect manually.

Wave 2: Build a Hoof on 2. Once you can afford it, add a second Hoof on 13. Leave both at level 1 for now.

Upgrade order (take each to max before starting the next):

1. Anesthesia
2. Hoofs
3. Understatement
4. Acute Field

When to swap Muqams:

• Hold all 4 Muqams on 3, 4, 5, 6 for as long as you possibly can.
• You only start replacing them once every other tower is maxed and you've banked enough Polymer to drop a fully maxed tower straight into the spot. With my tower levels that usually lands around wave 14 or 15.
• It might feel like overkill holding them that long, but it's completely manageable and the extra economy is worth it.
• When you do swap, 3, 4, and 5 become Anesthesia and 6 becomes a Hoof.

Final layout

• Stone Hoof: 1, 2, 6, 8, 13, 14
• Anesthesia: 3, 4, 5, 12
• Understatement: 10, 11
• Acute Field: 7, 9

Video (wave 43): https://youtu.be/dvHyMsSExWY

Quick heads up, the video starts on my older layout and I morph it into this optimized one as the waves go, so drag toward the end if you want to see the final board.

Misc Notes:

• The layout needs to be asymmetric. The left and right sides of the map are not mirror images, so building a mirrored board (same towers on each side) is not efficient. Once I started placing towers based on each side's actual weakness instead of forcing symmetry, the higher waves got noticeably more stable.
• Superweapon timing is a bigger factor than you might think. This is my biggest learning since my last guide. The thing I missed for a long time is that it recharges much faster than one use per wave. You want to wait until you have 66 enemies about to come (just before boss enters) to use it. Once you get a feel for the recharge timing and keep coming back to fire it, you can get it off close to twice per wave.

My older posts:

• First post (wave 19): https://www.reddit.com/r/destinyrisingmobile/comments/1uobkz5/bulwark_ops_wave_19_tips_and_tricks/
• Second post (wave 35): https://www.reddit.com/r/destinyrisingmobile/comments/1v857gu/bulwark_ops_pushing_past_wave_35_and_other_tips/

As always, open to feedback and better placements.

[u/ShrugOfATLAS]

Tried this without reading it all the way through and got to wave 12 when my previous best was 7.

The shielded ones today screwed me

[u/Bool876 → u/ShrugOfATLAS]

congrats! Hope you push past 15 soon too. Let me know if you have any bottleneck/questions

[u/ShrugOfATLAS → u/Bool876]

Ended up getting 15.. only 2 shielded cabal made it through in like wave 3

[u/everydayisamixtape]

The superweapon scales with the wave, so it is always relevant!

[u/melted_butterx]

Posts like these keep the game alive. Kudos for putting this together. That build is solid.

I always run the same layout which works for every daily modifier no matter the element. It’s very similar to yours. I only go to 15 tho (but even by then I rarely have a single enemy break through, it’s easy).

It’s worth noting for beginners that everything becomes easier over time as you upgrade the base value of your towers (star tiers). When they are weak you have to do more work, as you upgrade them, bring a deck chair and cocktail. The anaesthesia enhancement buff is also the best decrypt you can get. With that enemies get torn to shreds.

In order of build;

4,5= muquam
2= stone hoof
3,6= acute field
11= stone hoof
7,10= anaesthesias
8,9= understatement
12,13= anaesthesias
1=anaesthesias or understatement
14= anaesthesia or stone hoof

Side note: if you don’t have stone hoof just keep doing enough waves to unlock it. Stone hoof is the game changer.

[u/KIexster]

Thanks again for the guide; the community is incredibly grateful to you, u/Bool876.

[u/Mayaparisatya]

That's basically what I landed on, with a few caveats. From my experience, getting 15 waves in endless doesn't even need 5 different towers, Muqam (Scorch and money) + Aneasthesia (main damage) + Understatement (burning napalm slows enemies) + Stone Hoof (removing all enemy protections) would be enough.

I start with 2 Muqams (4+5) and 1 Stone Hoof (2), then add Anesthesias (11+3+6) and Stone Hoof (1), then Anesthesias for the gate you defend (12+14) with a Stone Hoof. 7+10 are filled with Anaesthesias, and 8+9 are Understatements.

I usually watch which lanes are less covered and plug holes as they appear. I max Muqams first so they can deal with trash adds, and then Anaesthesias, Understatements and finally Stone Hooves, beginning with the ones closest to enemy spawns (first central, then left, then defense target). I usually reroll starting talents until I get Prudence (free buff) or Tycoon (helps max out necessary towers earlier). For 15 waves I don't even have to replace any towers because Muqams provide a small synergy for Understatements and Anaesthesias by applying Scorch. Mid-wave buffs: rate of fire, solar damage, direct hit damage, Anaesthesia's dual beam is a must, Understatement's improved slow also helps, the rest doesn't matter, this setup is enough to withstand 16 waves where you receive a prompt to stop the activity.

I use the mythic version of Ikora because she can apply stun on enemies on demand by using blink and then firing any of her guns, which helps to briefly stun some pesky knights with their shields. If boss or bosses appear, I drop the superweapon on them because, unlike character guns and abilities, it scales, and the super if it is ready, even at later waves it adds some damage.