Dungeon Empires Starter Guide

Dungeon Empires Starter Guideby silverdash

Abbreviations:
STR = strength
DEX = dexterity
INT = Intelligence
MAG = magic
crit = chance to land a critical strike (a critical strike means 150% (direct) damage)
IE = Internet Explorer
AP = Action Points

How to join the forum:
http://dungeonempires.gamigo.de/foru…read.php?t=729

Firefox compatibility:
Dungeon Empires seems to be compatible with Firefox 4. At least it works for me. The first time the loading time however was so long that I thought something was wrong but that’s normal. The next time you play Dungeon Empires it will load way faster.

Classes:
There are 3 classes to chose from:

Strength based:
Slow, heavy hitter with lots of HP. I personally don’t like this one as it doesn’t give me much control over the fight.

Dexterity based:
Fast hitter with a high chance to hit and a high chance to crit (50-70% for me). Also has a decent mana pool.
I prefer the DEX-class because I want to be the first one to strike in a battle. For example:

You enter a room at level 7 with 2 humanoids with “On The lookout”.
As a DEX-class you are most likely the one that may strike first so you can use Taunt to finish one off before On The Lookout even activates. If you would have been a strength class they would have hit you both for ~7-12 damage each and they would have both 50% dodge change for the next 2 attacks EACH. Ouch…

Also the crit % makes up for the lower damage compared to the STR-class.

Intelligence based.
Magic specialists begin with Life Drain (I believe a level 12 skill) which is a significant kick-start to the early levels. Magic specialists should put the majority of their points into INT, and a few in DEX to avoid being destroyed first thing in combat with 3 or 4 STR based mobs.

Side note:
The starting ‘classes’ only seem to set up a basic archetype initially. You are free to lay all your stat points where you choose. If you start as a fighter and put all your points in INT you will be functionally equivalent to a starter mage by level 12 once you buy Life Drain (barring the any starter equipment you still have and a few starter points in STR instead of INT).

The three stats:
Strength:
Each point increases your total health by 5 and your damage by 1%.
Dexterity:
Each point increases your crit%, your chance to hit opponents and decreases the chance for opponents from hitting you. It also seems to increase the chance of critically hitting opponents with spells.
Magic:
Each point increases your total mana by 5 and your spell damage by 1%.

Things to do after you completed the tutorial

  • Raid dungeons that have 4-5 creatures. Don’t raid dungeons with 1-3 creatures as it is a waste of your AP.
  • At Level 7 you can handle up to 8 creatures.
  • Around level 10 (I suppose you know how to play by now) you can handle the 20-25 creature dungeons for the massive XP (~200+ per run) and huge loot increase.
  • Buy the necklace (or any other items) that give some stat boosts.
  • Buy all HP potions and at least one mana potion (casters probably buy all mana potions). Why? Because it only restocks every 24h and with potions you can defeat maybe twice as much creatures during a raid at lower levels as the potions pretty much heal all your HP instantly for no time-cost at level 5.
  • Buy the Ice Shield (ability) for your hero a.s.a.p. as it absorbs 40 direct damage (80 for fire damage) for 7 mana plus it delays attackers by 20. This ability is also available for the melee heroes AFAIK. This ability will boost your survivability by A LOT early game and only costs 50 gold. I mean, ~70 HP + 40 HP that only costs 7 mana is like omfg nice!
    Note: The shield stays active when there is shield left and you enter a new battle within the same raid. It ends when either max damage is absorbed or when the turn limit is reached, whichever comes first.
    Even better, you can activate it BEFORE you enter a fight so you won’t lose any time units casting it.
    Ice Shield also absorbs bonus damage depending on your magic damage bonus % received from your INT.
  • You also might want to buy a damage spell (preferably fire-based) to counter those ice-humanoids with “On The Lookout”.

Tips and Game Mechanics

  • 300 AP regenerate by default over 8 hours and 20 minutes.
  • Your AP is fully (300) regenerated after leveling up.
  • After completing a dungeon you can not re-enter it within the next 24 hours. Failing the dungeon by dying or surrendering will also lock it.
  • After you raided a dungeon with many creatures with ease, write down the owner’s name of that dungeon so you can raid it again in 24 hours. NOTE: Player’s names are case sensitive…
  • When looting: Look for different loot when u can only chose like 12 gold and no items. You risk the -50% (positive rounding) gold penalty (-6 in this example) but you have a chance of roughly 25% of finding an item instead. Personally I prefer an item then because I need to upgrade those rooms which requires old runes.
  • When looting: Chose gold above an item when killing off multiple creatures unless the item/creature to chose from is really worth it. Chose items when killing of weak single creatures like Ants as the gold value here will be lower. However this is still a personal matter. This is just a tip that does not always apply.
  • Don’t upgrade any standard rooms with magic runes in the beginning. First design your dungeon and make sure what rooms you will upgrade. You will soon loot uncommon and rare rooms. Save your magic runes a bit as they are rare. The Old Runes aren’t worth much.
  • Always chain your creature-rooms so there is only one path to travel from start to exit to prevent intruders from leaving your dungeon without having ti fight every single creature. Most dungeons I have raided so far gave me the exit after 1 or 2 fights…
  • Try to put as many creatures in one room as possible. Rooms with one creature inside usually doesn’t even hurt a good intruder.
  • Match creatures to style and fixture, but mixing elements has it’s benefits. Have 3 different elements of ant (fire, dark, and icy for example) would have the benefit, particularly against Mages, of forcing the player to vary his attack (assuming he has enough counter elements on his action bar) while still leveraging the room’s environment for all 3 mobs. If you just had all icy or dark ants then one fire breath would clear the whole room.
  • Put weaker creatures and rooms with only 1 creature at the start of the dungeon. This way when an intruder dies in your dungeon they will most likely have more gold when they die which means more gold for you.
  • Mummies and Gargoyles cast a Magic Shield in their first round. So when you encounter a zombie and another creature (only applies when you are primarily melee) kill the other creature first as the Mummy/Gargoyle will attack you in it’s 2nd round and who cares about some magic shield anyway as a melee class?
    To counter this as a magic user:
    DoT those creatures first. Life Drain or Fire Strike include a Damage Over Time component that is not affected by the magic shield.
  • Try to log in every day at least once to receive the huge gold bonus.
  • If you need more room to view the game press [F11] in Firefox and IE to toggle full-screen.
  • The rarity list for loot:
    Gray = common
    White = normal
    Green = uncommon
    Rare = light blue
    Ultra rare = purple
  • Don’t forget to check your dungeon chest every day. It may contain items even tough you had no intruders. (I have no idea why)
  • Don’t loot Key’s at the lower levels. You won’t get 6+ keys anyway and you can’t take them with you for the next raid. Also not every fight awards a key, there is only a small chance AFAIK.
    Note (Thanks @Eikona): When you can only chose between a key and a pile of gold less then 20 then chose the key. Keys are worth 20 gold at the end of the dungeon.
  • The Statistics-screen and the Welcome-screen can be accessed from the World-screen.
  • When playing, close any other windows that use Flash and such as it might slow down Dungeon Empires. At least it does so for me on Firefox.
  • In battle, the window on the right that displays the attacking order of all combatants. However, it also displays bars underneath the combatant icons. The fuller these bars the bigger their delay. Watch this list when you use the ‘Quick-action’ on one of your abilities to use the exact right amount of mana. Mmm… I don’t know how to explain this one properly…
  • You can automatically walk to a position in the dungeon by clicking on it on the mini-map. He will even run (fleet-footed) when the distance exceeds a certain amount. You can also click on the red dots on the map to make him automatically enter new rooms.

Tips & Game Mechanics Part II

  • The AP cost for dungeons:
    1. 60 AP per raid on the proposed level
    2. 70 AP per raid, one level below the proposed
    3. 80 AP per raid, two levels below the proposed and all levels including
    4. 55 AP per raid, one level above the proposed
    5. 50 AP per raid, two levels above the proposed levels and all above
  • Those ‘4 Green Things’ near the bottom of the screen in the Dungeon Editor are places to put the creatures on that you already bought but don’t want to place in a room anymore.
  • Don’t open the chest at the end of the dungeon that requires 6 keys. You probably get some common item from it while the 6 keys together are worth 120 gold. I still need information on the higher key-requirement chests.
  • If you want to build a ‘player friendly’ dungeon then don’t upgrade your creatures at level 15 as you won’t be able to summon the level 1 creatures of that type anymore after that.
  • Hover over enemies during combat to see their buffs (you can also hover over their buffs for more information). This is useful to determine who to kill first. Note that you might need to select the enemy first (left mouse click).
  • When you surrender/die in a raid you lose the money but you keep all the looted items. So when you think you’re not gonna make it go for the items instead of the gold when possible.
  • Putting more creatures in your dungeon isn’t always better. More creatures attract stronger heroes. It might be better to focus on fixtures and putting as many creatures as possible in one room because the other players can’t see that information before entering your dungeon.
  • On the levels 1-20 you should try to attract as many visitors (=intruders) to your dungeon as possible. Visitors may give you items whether they survive or not.
  • When you disconnect from the game while in a raid it counts as a surrender.
  • Room styles are leveled the same way as you would level a fixture.
  • if you have any negative stats like Overwhelmed active on you on the end of the combat it will still be active in the next combat in the same raid.
  • If you don’t want to level up then just die at the last creature in a dungeon and only loot items. This way you can buff your dungeon, your rank and your hero’s items before advancing.
  • Some creatures drain life (a lot) or use healing abilities at the start of their turn (Once a creature even did it twice…). Use instant kill abilities on those. Note that Ice Shield will absorb the damage but will not prevent their ‘drain-heal’.
  • Fixtures, Shard and Room Styles can not be removed from a room. They can however be replaced by putting a new Fixture, Shard or Room Style on top of it (which effectively replaces destroys the old one).
  • Items in your own treasure chest are free. The price listed there is their sell price.
  • Creatures may use their special abilities without fixtures but the chances for them activating them is lower.
  • Room leveling cost:
    Runes to level up an ordinary room:
    From level 1 to level 2 – Old 3
    From level 2 to level 3 – Old 7
    From level 3 to level 4 – Old 12, Magic 2
    From level 4 to level 5 – Old 18, Magic 4
    From level 5 to level 6 – Old 25, Magic 6
    From level 6 to level 7 – Old 33, Magic 8Runes to level up a green room:
    From level 1 to level 2 – Old 7, Magic 0
    From level 2 to level 3 – Old 12, Magic 2
    From level 3 to level 4 – Old 18, Magic 4
    From level 4 to level 5 – Old 25, Magic 6
    From level 5 to level 6 – Old 33, Magic 8
    From level 6 to level 7 – Old ?, Magic ?

    Runes to level up a blue room:
    From level 1 to level 2 – Old 12, Magic 2
    From level 2 to level 3 – Old 18, Magic 4
    From level 3 to level 4 – Old 25, Magic 6
    From level 4 to level 5 – Old 33, Magic 8
    From level 5 to level 6 – Old 42, Magic 10

  • Elemental damage (like +4 water damage on a sword) does not count for Taunt’s damage.
  • When you level up during a raid and die afterwards in that same raid then you don’t lose a level. You only lose the XP that you gathered after leveling up.
  • Armor reduces the amount of physical damage taken. By how much this is exactly is still unclear.

FAQ:

  • Q: Why would I want to raid a non-player dungeon? They have usually hard fixtures and such that players don’t have.
  • A: Ever since the Beta, we assumed that rare creatures create better loot. Same goes for the room itself, the room style and fixtures. Also, the loot depends on the number of creatures in one room. So the NPC dungeons could give better loot. But it’s only a community theory.
    But anyway, NPC Dungeons were created to show what everyone’s dungeons might look someday.
  • Q: How do i reset my account?
  • A: By spending Dragon Ore.
  • Q: How can I obtain Dragon Ore?
  • A: Buy it using real cash from Gamigo.
  • Q: The Ability reset button doesn’t work in the Hero-Screen. Is this a bug?
  • A: No it’s not a bug. The reset button is only activated by purchasing the item shop reset.
  • Q: How do I pay raw gold to make specific creatures more happy?
  • A: Lfet-mouse click on the gold on the top of the screen and hold it. The longer you hold it the more gold you will spend. Then click on a creature in your dungeon.
  • Q: I didn’t receive the 5-day-in-a-row 2000 gold bonus. Is it a bug?
  • A: It’s not automatically added. In the Welcome Back Screen you have to click on the flashing box with the 2000 gold pieces in it. Yeah I know whoever invented that…

Talents
You gain 1 talent every 2 levels starting from level 10.

  • Feeling Lucky: Increases the chances of finding more loot. It does not increase the chances for an item being more rare. Of course finding more items means more chances for finding rare items. I’m not sure what the maximum number of loot-able items in one chest is.
  • Armor Adaptation: Only decreases the total loss of speed on all items (thus not for each item).
  • Quick Reflexes: I’m not sure if this also means that you can escape magic attacks as those are also attacks.
  • That meaning of the # of statues:
    1 statue = 1-9 monsters
    2 statues = 10-19 monsters
    3 statues = 20-29 monsters
    4 statues = 30-39 monsters
    5 statues = 40+ monsters
  • Ice Shield does not seem to benefit from your armor / resists.

Stuff I haven’t quiet figured out yet:

  • Can I stack fixtures of the same type? What happens when I combine taunt and lookout on the same creature type? which one goes first?
  • Is your ranking purely based upon the number of killed/survived intruders?

Possible Bugs:

  • Autowalk (clicking on mini-map in a raid) seems to get stuck sometimes.
  • I often don’t get the exit-bonus or even worse, the game says I didn’t reached the exit.. I sure did. Also the statistics window shows my last raids (all 5 exit reached as shown) but the bottom right one with the total stats says: Exits reached: 3… Obviously something is wrong there.

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