Strategy

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This page handles general strategies and give some tricks to solve dungeons. But of course, every game is different, so you won't have a definite solution on how to win. Also these advice are for intermediate to advanced player only : true veteran had to forget everything to push their play style to new height. Alos, if you are new DD, you would be advised to read the New Players guide first.

The article is divided in 3 parts :

  • The different phases you will go through when exploring a dungeon
  • Some combat tricks, which you could apply to the boss or any other monster
  • Some power-builds and odd tricks, which are not entirely required, but still fun to master

You can also find more specific strategies in the class, race, gods and dungeons topics, and are also encouraged to the read the different Annotated Playthroughs.

Important note : The word "wisely" or similar ideas are often used. It led you think that if you make a wrong decision, you are doomed to fail ! It might sometimes be the case. But you will be amazed how resourful your hero might be. So don't take that word too seriously. And sometimes, true power lies behind your mistakes !!!

The different phases

The dungeon exploration can be divided in 4 phases, each with their own challenges :

  • The preparation : You are not in the dungeon yet, but you still have strategic choice to make. Which class/race/preparation will the best, or the most enjoyable ?
  • Scouting : Your first few steps in the dungeon, when you are getting a feeling of the place. You are doing more exploration than monster fighting
  • Build-up : When you start building-up your character and stacking resources for the final fight. This is really one of the place where the game is won or lost
  • Boss fight : Unleash all you might to defeat the nasty boss (or bosses) in a firework of deadly blows, powerful mana and yummy potions.

Preparation

Ah, the preparation screen ! Where you can spend hours picking the right class, race and preparations which will allow you to solve you dungeons of choice. Rest assured : every single dungeon can be won by any class and without any preparation (playing as a purist). But for sure, some combination are easier than others...

Race Selection

main article :race There are two ways to go about race selection: Picking a strategy in advance, or keeping open to whatever the dungeon presents. You should probably pick your race considering the boss (if you know what it will be), but Halflings and Gnomes are almost always helpful.

The races can be sorted in 2 groups :

  • Those giving permanent bonus : Human, Orc, Dwarf. Convert early, and you'll get the benefit of the race for the whole game
  • Those providing resources : Dwarf, Gnome and Goblin. Convert late, for a powerful spike during boss fight, or during build-up to win fight over higher level monsters and trigger XP juicy bonuses.

Character Builds

There are several different approaches to character builds which generally fall into one of the following categories:

Striker

Focusing heavily on attack damage and one-time buffs, Strikers are characters that attempt to end their fights quickly with a few powerful physical attacks. Strikers only use spellcasting to supplement their damage, primarily relying on physical attacks. Character classes such as the Class: Warlord Warlord, Class: Rogue Rogue, and Class: Crusader Crusader make strong strikers. Strikers tend to only want enough health and resistances to survive a single attack from enemies, and put no further effort into defenses, instead focusing on offense so they only need to survive that one attack. Temporary buffs that only last for one attack are very useful to striker builds, since their battles end shortly afterwards and they can then explore to recharge their mana and re-cast their buffs. Strikers benefit enormously from any item that increases their attack damage, and greatly enjoy the Glyph: CYDSTEPP CYDSTEPP, Glyph: ENDISWAL ENDISWAL, and Glyph: GETINDARE GETINDARE glyphs which allow them to tack on a few extra attacks with little additional effort. These characters prefer to fight low-health monsters such as Goats, Gorgons, and Warlocks.

The Race: Human Human and Race: Orc Orc are generally the best races for strikers, though strong striker strategies exist for every race except for the Race: Dwarf Dwarf.

Brawler

The sister build of the Striker, the Brawler attempts to balance offense and defense to outlast opponents by sheer attrition. While they do not focus on ending battles quickly like the striker, attack damage is still the most important aspect for a brawler character. Permanent resistances are very useful to the Brawler, making deities that offer boons to that effect very valuable. Classes such as the Class: Berserker Berserker, Class: Monk Monk, and Class: Paladin Paladin make superb brawlers. Brawlers make exceptional poison fighters with the Glyph: APHEELSIK APHEELSIK glyph, and can often make great use of Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH and Glyph: BYSSEPS BYSSEPS. Glyphs that deal damage directly are poor choices for brawlers, which need to use more mana-efficient options to win battles of attrition. Brawlers prefer to fight low-damage monsters such as Meatmen or Golems, but are heavily penalized for fighting monsters with debuffs such as bandits.

In some cases, the line between Brawler and Striker may become blurred. Since both builds prioritize attack damage foremost, opportunity and necessity may cause strikers to play like brawlers and brawlers to play like strikers. This overlap means you can often enter the dungeon with preparations that would suit either a brawler or striker and then develop on the build that makes most sense based on the boss and the deities, items, and glyphs available to you.

The Race: Human Human and Race: Orc Orc make the best Brawlers, but specific brawler strategies exist for every race.

Caster

Specializing in either the Glyph: PISORF PISORF or Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ glyph, a dedicated caster eschews the normal focus on attack damage, instead diverting attention to max mana or other unconventional advantages. The caster will primarily rely on glyphs for damage, and survivability is largely a non-issue. This make utility glyphs that help your combat performance largely worthless, but makes the Glyph: BLUDTUPOWA BLUDTUPOWA glyph invaluable. The Item: Crystal Ball Crystal Ball item is by far the best selection for a caster, although you'll need to save a decent sum of gold to abuse it. Casters can deal massive amounts of damage without ever taking retaliation from monsters, enabling them to casually ignore debuffs and massive damage that an enemy might otherwise have. The largest downside casters face is that they have trouble killing weaker monsters when performing level-up catapults, since their total focus on magic means their attack damage is going to be very low and they will either have to use mana or health resources to defeat weaker monsters that should be push-overs. This makes the swift hands class feature of the Class: Assassin Assassin very useful for caster characters. Other strong caster classes are the Class: Wizard Wizard and Class: Bloodmage Bloodmage.

Casters should almost always play as an Race: Elf Elf, Race: Gnome Gnome, or Race: Orc Orc. Elves and Gnomes grant additional spellcasting power, while the Orc's bonus to base attack greatly increases the damage he deals with Glyph: PISORF PISORF. Orc Caster builds are very uncommon since there is no way to ensure PISORF or Binlor (without prepping him) will appear in the dungeon, and your entire character setup depends on that.

Hybrid

These characters, for whatever reason, do not have any particular attributes that make them well suited to one specific approach. Instead, they present a well-rounded character that alters his approach for different monsters and situations. Hybrids lack the specialization of other builds, and as a result are much weaker overall and will need to leverage their versatility to use their resources more efficiently. They also tend to suffer because they will want to keep a wider variety of glyphs, and will not gain benefits from having converted them until later in the dungeon. Classes such as the Class: Fighter Fighter, Class: Thief Thief, and Class: Sorcerer Sorcerer have the kind of versatility that makes for a good hybrid. The Class: Wizard Wizard is also potentially a good hybrid choice, as he is able to carry a large number of glyphs and does not need to convert them directly in order to extract conversion points from them. Obviously your deity choice would be entirely based on your scenario.

Races that are back-loaded (that is to say, you benefit most by converting items and glyphs late), such as the Race: Halfling Halfling, Race: Gnome Gnome, and Race: Goblin Goblin make for excellent hybrids. The Race: Human Human and Race: Elf Elf are also sufficiently diverse to offer a strong option for hybrids.

Gold-Farming

If your vault is near empty, but you know where to kill the IN DEMAND trophy, take the bet on boss preparation, and you can score 1050 gold off the boss kill.

Prior to unlocking IN DEMAND trophies, Transmutation Seals can be used on boss trophies to convert them to their full gold value. Again, the "Bet on the Boss" preparation increases the cash gained.

Scouting

Levels 1 to 3. It's rarely possible to kill monsters of significantly higher level at this stage, but it can be useful to do some quick scouting around the dungeon and find what Gods and Glyphs are available, as well as what Boss spawned (if in a random boss dungeon).

The length of scouting depends on your play style, but also on the dungeon. Some player would hardly kill any monster before they have cleared 25% of the map, and thus have more choice for early Buil-Up, some would try to level-up as soon as possible to avoid wasting black space. Even though it possible to fully explore Hobblers before fighting any monster and still win, for most dungeons, don't over explore though in scouting phase. Black space a valuable resource.

Tools

The most useful glyph for scouting is LEMISEE which reveal in priority altars, glyphs, the boss, subdungeons, shops, and other glyphs. Some class also provide extra information for scouting, such as the fighter, the wizard, the tinker and the half-dragon

Mana investment

While scouting, you probably won't spend much mana in combat, and might spoil a lot of it. Thus, WONAFIT is another useful glyph at this stage, which lets you efficiently into the preparation of a nice salted popcorn bowl. Each summoned monster will grant 1 bonus XP, but could also be the occasion for a mid-fight level-up. If you are scared of wasting black space, it is also a solution to have potential target travelling directly to you. It is even more efficient if you have a balanced dagger (in terms of XP management).

Build-up

Levels 3 to 7'. It's possible to kill monsters of significantly higher level during this phase, to generate more exp by using the level-up steamroll and the experience catapult. The goal is to create the appropriate conditions for the final boss(es) fight(s) : ready to use resources (piety, conversion points, popcorn,potions...), high enough level close to level-up, boons accumulation, inventory composition...

The build-up phase for the boss battles is highly significant, as it requires maximizing exp gain, minimizing resource usage, and choosing an appropriate strategy. It's worthwhile to note that while dungeon exploration is itself technically a limited resource, it is often desirable or even necessary to exhaust all dungeon exploration during this phase to maximize exp gain, unless intending to use a APHEELSIK glyph or regen tactics to defeat the boss(es). In dungeons where there are two bosses, it can be helpful to try to leave a corridor, corner, or area unexplored to allow for regeneration between boss battles.

When reaching level 6 to 7, it's often beneficial to have explored most if not all of the dungeon, and begin creating an "exp farm." By weakening several lower level monsters to within a single hit from death, they can be finished later to gain exp for further level steamrolling. Note, it is less useful or even dangerous to leave creatures with the First Strike ability weakened as a part of an exp farm, as they will deal still deal damage to you when you come back to finish them off.

Exploration

Always remember that during Build-Up, black space is your main resource. Black space is mana and is health. And you will transform that health and mana into damages, experience, objects... for the final fights.

So don't be shy in exploration, but explore wisely (easier to say than to do, no ?)

Monster regeneration

Keep in mind that monsters regenerate while you are exploring (1 HP per monster level). So you will often want to fully heal/recover mana before starting a fight.

Or, in some case you will be able to damage a monster quicker than it heals (regen-fighting), but in the end you would have had to hit it more often, and would thus have used more health. So, keep in mind that it is less efficient in terms black space. So make sure that the bonus XP is worth black space usage.

Spare mana/health usage

If you wish to fully recover before a fight, you will often have more health than or vice-versa. It would be silly loosing it, so always try to use the spare health/mana for something. There are plenty of opportunities to invest spare mana (monster slowing, giving burning effect, getting physical resistance from wall crunshing,...), so make good use of them. Spare health might slightly trickier to invest wisely as monster will heal at the same time as you do. But before fully recovering mana, you can also double check that you really need it !

If you can save all mana/health, don't worry too much. You often won't have a choice or have something to do.

Black space positioning

You will sometimes need to explore just 1 or 2 squares during a fight, to recover the right amount of health to give the final blow, without allowing the monster to heal too much. So it is always a good idea manage such accessible black tiles during your exploration.

=====Exploring the inaccessible There will often be tiles which can be explored by normal means. You can still exploit them with LEMISEE (explores random tile) or BLUDTUPOWA (explores nearby tiles). Destroying walls is another way to reach them.

Monster selection

To be done Select carefully your monster for next fight.


Inventory management

There is on important rule when taking items : the occupy room in your inventory. And the only way to get rid of them, is to convert them. On the one end, it is a conversion bonus triggering your race bonus. But on the other hand is would be silly to clutter you inventory with objects you don't need now, or to be obliged to convert an item too early to make room for another powerful artefact...

So think twice before picking something-up, and think twice too before converting an object.

In the same way, spend you gold wisely in the shops.

Single-Use Glyphs

Single-Use Glyphs are a special case. If you know early on in the game that you will be worshipping Taurog, you can still get limited use from some glyphs. The effects of CYDSTEPP, BYSSEPS, and GETINDARE will persist after you convert them, and those effects activating will not anger Taurog (or Binlor, for that matter), so it can be very beneficial to pick up and activate these glyphs (especially CYDSTEPP for non-Fighters), before beginning worship, then convert them afterwards for piety and the racial effect.

LEMISEE is another situation where you might want to convert early, once you done enough exploration with it.

Experience Catapult

Depending upon the hero's class and which glyphs and items are available, there are different ways that a low-level character might be able to take out a quite high level character. When such an opportunity arises, it is beneficial to follow through when your hero is at the lowest possible level. The experience formula greatly rewards going after creatures above your level.

  • For example, a level 1 hero killing a level 9 monster gets 81 experience, and will suddenly catapult to level 6.
  • A level 2 hero killing the same level 9 monster gets "only" 65 experience, and will wind up at level 5.



God Selection

God selection is essential to victory. Nothing is worse than picking a god only to discover that the selection is going to prevent you from winning. On the other hand, getting a god early usually means more piety and access to better boons. Whether or not you should grab a god as soon as you see them is a factor of your race, class, level, items, glyphs and the state of the dungeon. Here are some general rules for each:

  • God: Binlor Ironshield Binlor Ironshield: Binlor works as a source of magic resistance and resistance reduction, and is an okay source of piety. He grants a free PISORF on worship, which may be tricky to get piety with. You can get ENDISWAL for 35 piety, or can pick one up if it spawns making Extra Glyphs a good preperation to take if you plan on worshiping him. If you have the BLUDTUPOWA glyph then you can accumulate piety with Binlor faster than with any other deity. Constantly requesting Stone Skin and Stone Heart will allow you to rack up a great amount of magic resistance. Binlor is also a good desecration target, as long as you don't have any resistances. One downside to Binlor is that if the boss has high resistance, it's important you find the boss as soon as possible, as Stone Heart works on visible enemies only.
  • God: Dracul Dracul: Dracul is a good selection for most melee classes, due to how much health he can bring to the table. By conserving blood pools and exploiting his Blood Tithe boon, you can get the equivalent of a dozen Health Potions, even more if you're a Bloodmage. Unfortunately, he HATES all holy magic (HALPMEH and CYDSTEPP) so if you rely on these he is not a good choice. The other reason he's useful is for if Blood Shield boon, which stacks extremely well with the Dragon Shield, but has a high piety cost. His Blood Hunger boon works well for striker builds, since you can overheal using life steal.
  • God: The Earthmother The Earthmother: A somewhat useful deity by herself, but a great source of piety. The exp bonus from IMAWAL can work to your advantage, and you gain piety from it! Her Plantation boon allows you to get 100 Piety extremely easily, which can be used to convert to another deity. She also works well with The Pactmaker. As for her other boons, they provide decent leverage early game, but tends to fall off late game. Vine Form is a cheap source of HP at early levels. Clearance provides a cheap source of mana for the first few requests. Greenblood is a weak boon, but it's usable if you desperately need to get rid of curse. Entanglement can be used for cleaning up, since killing slowed enemies gives you an extra experience point. The Earthmother's also an easy desecration target, since a single Burn Salve negates her punishment.
  • God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian: A powerful deity for every class except Bloodmage and Assassin, or Tri-Sword/Alchemist's Scroll builds. Worship him as early as possible to get the most piety out of him. Absolution is deceptively powerful, allowing gain a ton of max HP, although it costs 1/5 of an item slot and some potential XP. Enlightenment can be used to your advantage, providing a nice bonus to everything, plus a complete curse wipe. Unfortunately he hates potions, and converting in and out of him isn't a great option.
  • God: Jehora Jeheyu Jehora Jeheyu: A very strange god. His boons can be very powerful, but will deplete your potions so they must be used carefully. Piety gain is random; if you get lucky, he can give you inordinate amounts of piety. However, punishments are also at random! Try to get the Petition boon to end his punishments as soon as possible. Desecrating him is very risky. A desecration can destroy your run, or give you free piety. Desecrate only when desperate.
  • God: Mystera Annur Mystera Annur: Mystera works well for certain strategies. Refreshment is a powerful boon, providing roughly 5-6 Mana Potions worth of mana, so saving glyphs for mana replenishment is crucial. Mystic Balance is a strong boon that allows for 5 MP fireballs and 8 MP CYDSTEPPs, although it fares poorly with other cheaper glyphs. Flames and Weakening is an option if you desperately need magic damage. Magic basically equates to 1 almost-free MP. Don't worship her if the dungeon is full of magical monsters or mana burners, however.
  • God: The Pactmaker The Pactmaker: Not a real deity. The Pactmaker offers 5 pacts which decrease your piety, but give you god effects when certain things happen. If you cannot pay the piety because you have no other god, nothing happens. If you have a god, but can't pay the piety, you do not invoke the gods punishment. You can also use Consensus for instant piety gratification or for converting out of a deity. Works well with "piety farms" like The Earthmother and Taurog, as well as the Stone Sigil.
  • God: Taurog Taurog: Taurog is a good source of piety, and benefits classes that beg for physical damage, especially the Berserker and the Monk. However, the mana penalty can be crippling and his boons will fill your inventory and prevent you from purchasing other items from shops. With Taurog, you can either worship him full-time and abuse his Unstoppable Fury boon or grab a few of his items and convert out of him before the MP penalty cripples you.
  • God: Tikki Tooki Tikki Tooki: Good choice as a later game deity, as he enjoys you slaying lower level monsters, but a big no for tanks. His Dodging boon is useful, and Reflexes gives you two powerful potions at your disposal. Tikki's Edge can also be abused if you saved a lot of low-level monsters. Poison isn't particularly powerful, but the first shot basically pays for itself. The best part of Tikki Tooki is that his boons give you gold, so you can afford buying powerful items and abusing gold-consuming items like the Tri-Sword or Crystal Ball.

Boss fights

Levels 7 to 10. At this point, dungeon exploration likely stops (unless you're using a poison glyph against a boss or can out regen them), and the battle begins. It can be useful at this point to be almost at the next level, allowing the player to use the level-up steamroll to instantly heal to full health and mana, possibly even multiple times during the fight.

The ideal position to be in when starting a boss battle is at Level 7 with 34 / 35 experience, with proper runes, and all health / mana potions remaining, and an exp farm containing 96 experience worth of monsters (enough for level 10) although this is very hard to do,. The first phase of the boss battle involves the player, using all available health and mana points (but not potions) against the boss before killing weakened monsters to gain a level. This phase ends when the player no longer has enough weakened non-boss creatures to gain another level, or has reached level 10.

Phase two of the boss battle involves the player using other available resources (health & mana potions, etc.) to defeat the boss. This is sometimes called to spike the boss.

In dungeons with two bosses, it can often be effective to kill the "hard hitting" boss with magic attacks during phase one, as they usually have lower max health. This allows the player to save as many health and mana potions as possible for the "tank" boss, who generally doesn't retaliate as powerfully.


Combat tricks

First Strike Finisher

First strike will often allow you to kill a monster you couldn't otherwise beat. Cast it just before the final blow, and the monster gets no retaliation hit.

  • Keep in mind that you still take a retaliation hit if the monster has first strike as well.

Read more in the Strike Order article

Fireball Softener

Hitting a monster with fireball before combat will often reduce the number of hits it takes to kill it. Can be used with first strike to take on otherwise dangerous foes without taking any damage.


Battle of Attrition

If you have enough attack to do more damage in one hit than your enemy is able to regenerate in the time it takes you to regenerate the damage that he does with a single hit, you can heal between attacks and still be able to have a net effect of his health decreasing. Be careful however, that it might be very exploration consuming.

  • A way to determine if you are able to damage your foe quicker that he would heal, is to compare the number of tiles you would need to recover from one of his strikes (damaged caused his attack / health you recover per explored tiles), and the number of tiles he would need to recover from one of your strikes (damaged caused by your attack / health he recovers per tile you explore). If you need less tiles than he does, you will heal quicker. Don't forget to take your spells in account !
  • Even if you heal slower than the enemy does, sometimes exploring one or a few blocks mid-battle can regenerate your HP/MP for additional hit/spell so that you can deal enough damage to kill the enemy.

Slow Poison

Attacking an enemy and then poisoning it and exploring (or using the LEMMISI glyph) allows you to take on enemies that would otherwise outlast you in a fight. If attacking with magic you can use this technique to beat a foe that would otherwise kill you with one hit.

  • This technique relies on either of two abilities. You can last as long as you can survive a single hit, so if your HP or resistance are as high as possible, you will be able to outlast harder hits.

Level-up Steamroll

With very few experience needed to gain the next level, you can fight a tough monster, and then when you can't fight any more, kill a low-level monster in order to level up. This will restore your health and mana without healing the tough monster. You can then go back to killing the tougher monster with full strength. It is possible to level up more than once during a single fight. This usually requires the player utilizing the "Experience Catapult" strategy first (see below) so that he has a lot of low-level monsters to kill. Nonetheless, keeping track of how many experience you can get from the available monsters is always a wise thing to do.

Brawling

It often seems more efficient to fight only one monster at a time, entirely devoting your mana and health bar to this fight. But in some case, it is actually much more efficient to fight two or more monsters at a time. Popcorn for mid fight level up is an example. But more are listed in the Multiple monsters fighting article.

Power builds and other odd tricks

This section lists particularly powerful builds tricks and niche strategies, which -honestly- no sane person could have imagined. The fact that they have been developed tells a lot about DD Community's fading sanity.

Level 1 Boss fight

To be done

Self Canon

To be done

Zero Damage killer

To be done