As a dungeon crawler with a bunch of freemium systems meshed into its core, Dungeon Hunter 5 (Free)can be a tough game to crack. It’s not just a matter of figuring out how to cope with the game’s plethora of timers and premium currency — it takes some advanced knowledge of the game’s freemium elements in order to work within them and potentially take advantage of them. The purpose of this guide is to impart some of that knowledge needed to succeed, as well as offer a few tips that can hopefully help you succeed.
Take Full Advantage of Your Timers Before Leveling Up
One important thing to take into consideration when playing Dungeon Hunter 5 is that when your character levels up, all your timers are restored to full. Any energy left on the table when you do level up is basically wasted as the timers are restored regardless of how much was used. Thus, it’s in your best interest to try and use your energy and keep it in a low state when you’re near a level-up. That way when you do gain that level you get the most energy restored for free.
Another thing to keep in mind is that your Stronghold Energy is also restored. Since you don’t gain experience when raiding it’s easier to time use of that energy prior to a level up. It sounds like common sense, but make sure that your stronghold energy is depleted prior to playing a single player mission that you know will push you over the experience edge for a level up. Wasted single player energy sucks, but leaving stronghold energy on the table sucks even more.
Inventory Upgrades Are Worthy of Your Premium Currency
As you might have gleaned from our review, one of the biggest tasks you’ll be undertaking in Dungeon Hunter 5 is upgrading your equipment. In order to do that effectively, you need to have the inventory space needed to collect all the different upgrade and evolution items necessary to get it done.
In addition, if you have the required inventory space it’s not a bad idea to keep weapons and armor of various elemental attributes so that way you can mix and match the right elements with the missions you’re on.
Of course, you can’t do any of this without inventory space and the only way you can expand it is with your premium currency. Thus, I’d recommend saving your currency for expanding space. In addition, should you take the plunge and buy some currency, I’d do so with the intent of allocating a substantial amount of it to inventory expansion. You’ll thank yourself later.
Practice Smart Fusion Tactics
This goes hand in hand with needing a big inventory. Dungeon Hunter 5 can potentially bestow fusion bonuses when you fuse your upgrade card with four of the same type. In addition, various fusion upgrade-only cards work best when they’re used with a weapon or armor card of the same element. Finally, a general elemental bonus is earned when you use any card of the same element with your upgrade card. Having a big inventory allows you to practice these smart tactics to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.
Recruit Lots of Friends
Whenever you go on a single player mission, Dungeon Hunter 5 allows you to pick an AI-controlled ally to accompany you. These allies are all based on actual players and have their own weapons, armor and stats. Each time you use them, you earn a ticket that can be used to open a randomized loot chest. You also earn additional tickets yourself each time someone randomly picks you.
Having friends makes this system even better. First, whenever you use an actual friend, you earn four tickets instead of one. Second, having a friend means that you get to use them regardless of wherever they are on their question or equipment path. When offered to pick a randomized ally, the game will typically only let you pick people comparable to the difficulty of that mission and they typically don’t have much in terms of cool weapons, armor and spells. Thus, you’ll typically notice a large difference in quality between actual friends and randomized recruits and you’ll get more tickets.
Find a Playstyle That Suits You
One of the cool changes in Dungeon Hunter 5 is the fact that you really only have one character that can equip a variety of different weapons and spells to customize that character in any way you want. For example, equipping a stave provides long range magic damage while dual swords is close-range quick damage and so on. In addition, spells can range from close-range AoE stun spells to long range damage dealers and even trap spells.
It sounds like common sense, but I’d recommend that you check out each weapon and spell at least once before you make a fusion investment in any particular piece of equipment. You never know what’ll work well for you and even so as I’ve stated before it’s not a bad idea to have some alternatives just in case.
Grind Potions When Possible
Once you unlock the middle difficulty on missions, you’ll be able to randomly earn potions as loot. These potions instantly replenish your health and are a godsend on difficult maps. When you find a map that offers potions as a drop, I recommend taking the time to grind on that map for awhile and accumulate potions. The goal is to have enough in your inventory that you feel comfortable using them when you need to. A spent potion to save a run is a hell of a lot more preferable than dying and being forced to restart (losing energy) or continue (losing premium currency).
Don’t Be Afraid To Walk Away If You Fail
This is probably the most important tip that can be given. Yes, there will be some instances in which you don’t use a potion in time (or don’t have any at all) and/or you take on a mission that’s just too hard. Furthermore, when you eventually run out of health on that mission, the odds are good that you will have already found some amount of loot that the game will try and taunt you with when it asks you to continue. In most of those situations, I’d highly suggest that you not waste your hard-earned premium currency to restart.
Sure, if you quit the mission you will walk away from whatever loot you’ve earned, but all you really effectively lose is the time needed to restore that lost energy. Whereas, if you cash in your premium chips and continue a mission, there’s no sure way that you’re going to actually survive that the rest of it, potentially putting you in a spot in which you’ll want to use even more premium currency to continue again. My easy rule of thumb is if you don’t have any potions, don’t continue. Also, on the off chance you decide it’s really worth it to use your premium currency and continue, make sure you actually use your potions at the earliest sign of danger.
Got any more tips? Feel free to leave them in the comments or check out the thread in our forums.
