Universal Dungeon Maker : Dark Lord (by GameCoaster)

Oh nyan plz, you never stop surprising me. How can i stop playing this game? HELPPPPPPPPPPP!

 

I heard some people complaining about the extractor/laboratory...

Bringing all my monsters to 5* elite seems like a good deal...
No?

So far it works for me!
After they’re all upgraded you just switch em’ up!

 

Amazing news! I can not wait for it! We really expect new content updates. Thank you for letting us know!

 

I do the same and have also been wondering why they are rarely brought up in strategy discussions. So far it has worked out great, no problem reaching t10 day 100 on Tanja or the water lord whose name escapes me at the moment

 

(crossposted from the subreddit)

I'm currently grinding Trial 10 with Tania at around level 700. It's unclear when I'm going to die. I have most of the useful unlocks but am missing some of the 6* weapons and (importantly!) Tailwind.

I think the strongest feature of my current dungeon is a Haste room close to the middle entrance with Fairy, White Fang and Sephiroth in it. All three of these have powerful combat triggered global abilities that are on longish cooldowns.


The Haste room gives A LOT of acceleration and agility. Both of these seem to affect how often these abilities fire, so putting all three in a haste room next to the entrance generates a truly absurd amount of value. For instance, in a regular room without acceleration/agility buffs, Fairy generates about 10 shield (5 procs total of her SS ability) for all monsters in your dungeon. In the haste room, she generates between 40-60 shield! Incredible.

It seems fairly doable to give them enough survival abilities (Absolute Barrier, etc.) so that they won't ever die, or will at least take a long time before they go down. Since they're in a haste room, all of their survival abilities will proc extremely quickly as well. Overall I think this is probably an essential part of any trial 10 dungeon layout, no matter what the rest of your strategy is.

 

What are your thoughts on the haste room that gives haste to the entire dungeon but doesn't allow any monsters inside it? I believe it's passive so I always put them in the back of the dungeon but I don't seem to do any better with them.

 

Emma skill 14: When in Focus state, the Fury acquired is increased by 20%.

How do you get Emma into a focused state? By combining her with a monster that has that buff or someone with the buff in her room?

Regarding epic monster skills, like Dryanid's Healing Rain, as these all triggered during combat?
I kept most epics except Death Knight in the lord room as guards but I'm reading many of you are putting them out into rooms.

 

Somehow I've never unlocked the passive Haste one - I use the one that debuffs enemy agility instead. No clue on how well it works - it's hard to gauge the impact of something like that.

I think optimal placement of your fusions is:

Bone Dragon, Suparna - combat sweeper. Goes in lord room so you can hopefully clear quick when you get swarmed.

Thetis, Cleopatra, Red Wyvern - Passive ability. Either lord room or room before lord room. Red Wyvern has a passive against monsters with burn but since her global burns everything it doesn't affect placement much except vs healers. It might be good to have a burning monster (or Suparna) with her as insurance.

Shiva, Arachne - debuffs monsters entering her room. Always put in lord room.

Dryanid - has a full heal + shield so I put her in the lord room.

Sephiroth, Fairy, White Fang - put in room next to entrance for reasons above.

Death Knight - this one is weird. You want her to take as many kills as possible, so I put her in a room that buffs attack/gives acceleration with other monsters that have low attack and high defense.

 

Does "dodge trap" makes heroes dodge the "extraction" collection of information or just the 1 damage? I just got the "hero+dodge+trap" trial and since i don't really use traps on the dungeon it seems like a good choice but i still have an extraction at the entrance and would like to know if it would get useless after i get this.

Also, does the laboratory facility collects info from monsters when they enter the room or when they enter the dungeon? I've always assumed it was when they entered the room but i'm not really sure now and it would be great to use its place at the entrance of the dungeon for a warhorn or something...

 

The extraction gets turned off by dodge trap, yeah. Pretty sure the lab is when stuff enters that room.

 

I enjoy this game so far, but I really don't feel like I understand the more advanced mechanics well enough to improve my play or progress farther than I am, and I'm hoping someone here can steer me in the right direction. My main issues preventing me from improving my play:

1. I don't know the 'meta' at all. What specific traps, facilities, monsters, etc. are especially good? What combinations of them are the most effective? Obviously, chaining things that apply debuffs with things that do extra damage to enemies with that debuff is good, but beyond that, any specific combos I should look out for?

2. I recall reading somewhere that the best building to level up and carry with me between early runs is a Hatchery, but I'm not sure I understand why. Is it just because it makes all my monsters a bit stronger from the very start, and continues scaling well (as extra levels are always good)? Is there some specific strategy that having overleveled monsters in the early game is a key component of? I vaguely recall something about either combining monsters with my 'hero' or each other being based primarily on level - is that what it's all about? Do I take a leveled hatchery, get as many junk monsters as possible at shops and as rewards, and feed them to my hero to make them super powerful? Is that a viable strategy, relying heavily on my hero for combat? The way I 'naturally' tend to play is to get lots of battle rooms with the best monsters I can, so by the time enemies get to my hero, unless they're weak/almost dead, I'm toast. Is it really viable to boost my hero to the point where they become the most important component of my fighting force, and I *want* enemies to get to them and fight them directly?

3. Traps seem.... kinda weak in general compared to combat rooms, with few exceptions. Am I missing something? Dealing one time damage seems a lot worse than a room full of monsters that can get multiple attacks in while also stalling the enemy for longer so I can regain more mana and use more of my hero's abilities. I usually just try to put one good damage/debuff trap at the very front of my dungeon, and one more (preferably debuff-focused) right before my hero's room, then fill the rest with battle rooms and facilities. Is that a bad approach? Am I failing to use traps effectively?

4. I have NO IDEA how monster merging works. I basically just pick monsters at random, or pick monsters that seem weaker in practice than their level suggests they should be. Should I be combining good monsters with other good monsters to get REALLY good ones? Should I be fusing unused oozes and imps and stuff like that to make good monsters a bit better? Are there specific stats/attributes/etc. that let me know which monster combos are best, aside from the 'special' pre-defined combos that are listed separately?

5. I also have NO IDEA how enemy pathing works. Is it deterministic or random? What do I need to know about how enemies tend to choose where to move to lay out my dungeons effectively? It seems like sometimes some of my battle rooms get skipped over and those monsters don't end up contributing, the enemies just clear some of the rooms and wind up fighting my hero before clearing the rest of the dungeon. I assume that's at least in part because I'm not placing things optimally, but without knowing how pathing works, I don't know what 'optimally' looks like.

6. How important is it to manually figure out monster combos that work well together? I tend to just auto-place. I assume there are more efficient methods, but I don't know what they are and I'm too lazy to do tons of experimentation, plus battles tend to be pretty hectic and it's hard to actually gauge how specific monsters/rooms are performing.

7. How important is it to merge rooms to boost their stats? Is it better, in general, to do that, or to focus on filling every empty space with battle rooms and filling up those battle rooms? Particularly if I've managed to expand my dungeon once or twice... And are there specific rooms that are best to combo with other specific rooms (again, aside from the clearly marked 'special combos' that I almost never seem to get)?

8. Is it better to stack my best battle rooms, especially ones that enemies tend to path to most consistently, with all my best monsters, or to split up my best monsters between rooms and have a mix of stronger and weaker ones in each?

9. Any specific heroes, especially early unlocked ones, that are especially strong and/or noob friendly/easy to use effectively? I've been using the one with vampire abilities (second one on the list, IIRC?). Is she any good? Should I pick another one to focus on instead?

10. Any other non-obvious strategies I should know about?

I tend to breeze through the first few 'floors' or whatever, then suddenly hit a wall and get slaughtered, which A) makes me feel like I'm obviously doing lots of things wrong, and B) makes the game less fun to play, because it goes from a cakewalk to "oops I'm dead" with so little warning. This isn't really a question, just an observation that may help shed light on what I'm doing wrong ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The TL;DR version of most of my concerns: it seems like monster and room merging mechanics in particular are really important, but the game doesn't seem to give me the information I need to know how those mechanics work and how to use them most effectively. If you don't feel like answering my long list of individual questions, just some general tips on those subjects would be great.

 

It's pretty long and I think it's better if you figure it out in a long run, but I'll make a short answer for some questions:
1- Anything with percentage is good because it scales into late game. Vulnable/Focus/Acceleration/Weak/Defend/etc. There really aren't specific combo since people try a lot of things and it does work. For starters you may wants some ice arrows rooms around entrance to slow down heroes' advance when your monsters are weak.

2- Level up is good because extra stats are good, and most Dark Lord's ability scale with level. It also depends on dark lord, as Tania want strong monsters, but with Emma you want her to be as high level as possible.

3- Traps are strong but you need to invest for advance traps, and Thesis/Marielle are required.

4- You usually don't use this option until you obtain monster enhancement, which let you feed a monster to another to let them gain level instead of merging and give you a random one.

5- Random, unless they reach the room in front of Dark Lord's room, then they will definitely jump straight into your dark lord.

6- Manually placing significantly increase your monster's efficiency. For example Salamander girl increase dmg based on burn stats on heroes, so you would want anything that can burn pair with her.

7- Good room always want to have higher level.

8- Strongest monsters and battle room at the last line of defense, aka in front of dark lord room. You don't want to be rushed down.

9- Tania. Elizabeth is good but you need some setup for her to work with.

 

Thanks for the reply! Thesis and Marielle are names of dark lords that have trap-focused abilities, I assume? So basically, how much to invest in traps vs. monsters vs. dark lord level is mostly a matter of the abilities of the dark lord I pick, right? Focus on monsters/traps if my dark lords has good skills that boost them, focus on dark lord level if my hero has strong attack/self buff skills, and experiment to figure out appropriate ratios for each? I assume it's probably always not a bad idea to have at least one good trap at the entrance and one good battle room by my dark lord, and to consider deviating from my dark lord's "default" strategy based on the items (or relics whatever they're called) I get, lucking into special monster/room combos early on, etc.?

So in general, monster enhancement on my best monsters is a better use of weaker monsters I'm no longer using than merging them to create random ones? I'm guessing it's still not a bad idea to do the random combine thing in some situations on mediocre/underperforming monsters until I roll something particularly strong and/or with good synergies with my dark lord, other monsters, and/or battle rooms? Should I stick to only using low level monsters I no longer have room for for enhancing/merging, or is it ever worth it to merge two relatively strong monsters (aside from those special combos)?

And I'm correct in my assessment that mediocre battle rooms are better than mediocre traps as I start a run and build up my dungeon, assuming I don't have some bonus that boosts traps, yeah? After all, a bad battle room with decent monsters in it is still decent, whereas a bad trap is just a bad trap, and you tend to have an abundance of monsters at least in the early stages IME. And as for traps, at least until I learn on my own what I'm doing and how to make good use of the other ones, I should mainly focus on ones that apply % debuffs so they naturally scale with tougher enemies?

Sounds like the first things I should focus on are learning which strategies/rooms are best with which dark lords, and manually arranging monsters to synergize between their skills and battle room buffs. And when in doubt, leveling up my best monsters, the battle room in front of my dark lord, and/or my dark lord themself (depending on my strategy, etc.) is generally a strong option. Sound about right?

 

1. For me I always carry over two warhorns (Fury) and an Electrical short (Mega thunder trap) until I get the necropolis unlock.
I usually keep the first six tiles for traps focussing on ice bolts generally as the slow effect really helps. If I get a hatchery early on I will place it but I’m not that worried about it as late game it becomes a bit redundant I find.
Lounge is a great facility used in a lot of upgrades.
For rooms, as others have said, I focus usually on any crap first and slowly replace with Focus/vulnerability/slow/panic rooms and then upgrade them as time goes by.

2. As I said, hatchery play a part early game, for sure, but late game it becomes redundant as my monsters are generally already levelled up nicely and so is my dark lord.
One key component for combining your monsters is to grab skills as well as levels. For example you will quite often pull a 1 or 2 star monster, say an imp, who happens to have a skill which is highly desired, such as Mystic one.
That’s when you combine with a strong monster or even a dark lord/hero to grab that skill for themselves (but only up to five skills remember)

The focus of dungeon design varies on your choice of dark lord.
I tend to find that Floria prefers less traps and more rooms with monsters whereas Emma prefers traps and less monsters.....as long as you pump her levels up.

3. Until the new update Traps didn’t really scale well for the late game dungeons I found. Warhorn was king (even though it’s a battle room) and ice traps pretty much did ok with the rest. Since the update however I’m finding the choice and
variety of traps a whole new ball game......however I haven’t managed to unlock many yet but I know necropolis is highly sought after (Immortal for all monsters)
The preferable traps are debuff centred and ones that potentially give a dungeon wide affect also. I tend to find placing a trap just before the dark lords room of little use and I prefer to stick my death knight there along with some other debuff monsters.

4. See my last. There is a post a few pages back which lists most desirable skills.

5. We went into pathing way back when, probably on page 20 or so....nyanpass May remember and help you with that. There is a detailed breakdown of pathing.


6. Match your monsters and their skills to the room they are in if you can. I’m finding that placing heroes with dungeon wide skills, such as death knight, work better in acceleration rooms as they will fire off their skill a lot sooner.
Also place a healer with your zealots or place a Fairy in a forward position room to trigger dungeon wide healing wind.
There is a lot to discover.....


7. Yes, do,this. Merge the rooms to get them levelled up.....but not as a priority, only when you pull a three stack of room/traps, otherwise focus on monster eggs.
Again I believe there was a post 2-3 pages back that lists your dungeon building priorities.

8. Your dungeon is constantly eveloving and so what I tend to find is you upgrade over time and as the dungeon expands I bring my more powerful monsters and heroes further back and put my trashier monsters at the front to absorb the first waves.

9. Best heroes (for me) are:- White fang, death knight, Fairy and suparna.

10. Read and devour everything on this forum.
I’ve been playing since release day and I’m still finding new strategies and surprises especially with the update and what is better is that more are promised.
I’ve never known such an addictive game.
Hope that helps

 

I'm going to add my two cents in, mostly on some of the questions I feel I can add a little shading to:

Different dark lords have different gimmicks, so their metas are different. Emma stacks fury on herself which means that she can oneshot any monster that wanders into her room -- provided that she doesn't get swarmed! so her meta uses warhorn, slow traps, or battle rooms to keep monsters to a trickle. Marielle stacks slow and dullification (which increases trap damage), so ice shot/ice pit/ice storm traps are potent with her. Tania burns stuff up, so fire traps with a dynamite near the dark lord entrance is a great strategy (not quite at the dark lord entrance, surrounded by 8 battle rooms), etc.

Each dark lord has their own meta, essentially. In the early game, you can get by well with warhorns at the entrance, giant rooms at the rear, hatcheries out of the way, and levelling up your focused characters.

Emma can tank bad guys, but most dark lords want to be protected. You want strong monsters near your back line to absorb incoming enemies, and you want some healers in your dark lord room: Fairy/Dryanid/Dryad/etc. or some "tank" monsters like the golems with a taunt shield, etc.

For my hard runs up to lv.10, this was essentially my strategy too. Traps have gotten a buff over the last update, but pound for pound, battle rooms will serve you well unless you are using Marielle and have some facility succession unlocked. (it is hard to build up an effective trap synergy without carrying at least some of the hard traps with you.

You can definitely min-max your placement, but I usually manually place my 6-star monsters, then place one "strong" monster in each battle room and auto-fill in the rest. It's important to have at least one "strong" monster in each room because a room with 3 weak enemies will wipe and then be useless for slowing the pace of enemies. A set-up with two or three "killer" rooms but weak otherwise will quickly pile up and that's how you get swarmed by enemies in the dark lord room.

I think it's really important to level up rooms that are crucial to your meta. Level up your giant rooms if you have your 6-star monsters in them -- triple ATK on your death knight is great, etc. Level up your hatcheries if you are farming monsters to merge. Level up your warhorn if you have one at the entrance. Level up your 4-star and 5-star traps if you're using them. Don't obsess over levelling up your battle rooms unless they are special.

Sadly, I find Elizabeth and Lilith the weakest of the dark lords. I think Charm/Lilith is slightly better than Vampire/Elizabeth for tackling content, but both starter Dark Lords are not well-represented in high-end content. If you unlock Emma/Tania/Floria/Marielle, each of them has a nice niche. The necromancer Dark Lord is also a little underpowered, I think, just because corpse explosion is hard to utilized perfectly.

 

I myself have a question for higher-level players! I'm wondering what facilities you bring into Trial 8+ dungeons with your facility succession.

Before Trial 8, I brought along a three giant room and a warhorn and a necropolis.

Now that the dungeons have three entrances instead of one, I'm getting a quarter of the fury I used to get from warhorn. I'm thinking I might switch out the warhorn for a "difficult to create" trap like meteor shower, etc., but I'm not sure what to build towards. I tend to use Marielle right now as I'm working up the trial ranks, but I like Tania a lot as well. What facilities do you carry over?

 

For Tania I just carry over 3 Necropolis. I think it's the most broken room in the game and would fill most of my dungeon with them if I could. Warhorns are nice but not as essential after the extra entrances get added. I still try to craft them during a run though.

I've also considered 1 Bigger Fight, since those are great to put near the entrance to your dark lord.