Brotato

Do not fear the elites!

We're going to make the use of the Gangster's ability to steal every single round until the final wave - no exceptions. Stealing an item you otherwise can't afford is going to make us powerful earlier. The drawback to stealing is that elites have a chance to spawn. Elites hit hard, but we're going to hit harder. When an elite spawns we want to try to kill it because doing so gives you a red crate with some of the best items possible. You don't need to kill an elite to finish a wave, however - so my recommendation is to gauge it each round one spawns. Get up close and see if you're making noticeable damage. If you are barely making a dent and running low on time, then forget about killing this one and just worry about killing other enemies and surviving. Some rounds you'll be "ahead" of the difficulty curve, some you won't. What matters is choosing your battles - but remember even when you don't manage to kill an elite, you still benefitted by stealing an item the round that spawned them.

I went with a full ranged build and started off with an SMG. The SMG is reliable for its range, speed, and decent damage output. Throw some other guns into the mix, really up to personal preference but a shotgun will help clear waves. The best advice build-wise to give for this run is to pump up your speed, dodge chance, and life steal. You need to get a high enough speed to outrun the elites if the fight isn't going your way. Faster speed means you can better outmaneuver their special attacks. A higher dodge chance gives you breathing room if you find yourself in the way of an attack that you can't avoid. Finally, life steal with all your guns picking enemies off at a distance will help you recover from any hits you do end up taking.

Make use of rerolling in the shop to get items you need, you want to steal every round but only steal items that benefit you. By going pure ranged damage I was able to accept any item that lowered my melee or elemental damage.

If you're lucky, passively getting any items that spawns turrets will help thin the horde. "Pocket Factory" is an item that I always try to incorporate into my build as it makes a turret spawn for destroying a tree. Pair that with "Tree" which makes more trees spawn and "Lumberjack Shirt" which makes trees die in one hit and you can get an arena of a ton of turrets helping you out. Even without speccing into Engineering points it'll still be noticeable, but feel free to level that up too. Trees can drop crates, healing items, and materials so more trees are helpful!

Good luck everyone!