Dungeons and Dragons Dark Alliance, Tips and Tricks
D&D focuses on different tactics and capabilities of the four companions named Dritzzt, Catti-Brie, Wulfgar, and Bruenor. They seek to defend their homeland against the destructive crystal shard and the forces of evil who yearn for the shard’s power.
In Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, you can play with up to three other players, each with their chosen hero. Each hero has a default set of attributes, classes, and skills.
There are 21 levels with various challenges and difficulty modes that determine the rarity of gear you acquire. Obtaining three to eight pieces of equipment results in unlocking set bonuses that improve your build.
There are a couple of strategies you should remember to enhance your build. Get the best weapons and armor and obtain gold to upgrade additional gear.
In this D&D Dark Alliance Beginner’s guide, I will share my top 10 tips to enhance your gaming experience so you can breeze through each level as effectively as possible.
Also Read: Best Character in Dungeons and Dragons Dark Alliance
Complete Optional Objectives
You can view your main and optional objectives at the upper right-hand corner of the screen at the beginning of every level.
Sometimes you’re only tasked with completing main objectives for short acts, but for longer acts, you’ll have both types of objectives.
Optional objectives consist of killing sub-bosses or collecting items such as Dwarven Mugs. Optional objectives are not mandatory, but I will highly recommend you to complete them.
After eliminating a sub-boss, you usually get one piece of epic gear that can help your build. On the other hand, item collection optional objectives won’t provide you with the same special equipment, but it will grant you bonus XP, which you will receive after completing the level.
Know How to Handle Environmental Hazards
It’s important to be aware of environmental hazards, especially in higher challenge levels, because they can significantly damage your HP. For such terrain, you’ll have to find a way to disable them by finding a way in your surroundings.
For example, the poisonous and cursed ground can be defused by detonating explosive barrels and hitting cursed violet sculptures to stop the flow of dangerous liquid, respectively.
However, frozen ground cannot be removed. To walk on the icy ground, you’ll need to gain the warmth buff by standing beside a flaming sword located nearby.
Only then will you be immune to cold damage, so make sure you do this first.
Explore Every Area Thoroughly
In this game, you don’t have a map to guide you. So, explore areas as thoroughly as possible to accumulate gold and better versions of gear from barrels and chests.
Note that most barrels are not highlighted, which shouldn’t deter you from breaking them because most of the time, they contain a sack of gold inside.
To access chests hidden in the depths of caves or ruins, you’ll seek out red drapes, which are situated over the edges of cliffs to signify that you can climb above or jump from them.
Exploring areas will also help you discover attribute shrines which will give you one attribute point and maximize your HP.
You even have to solve many puzzles, including standing on correct patterns or finding and activating special runes on the walls.
Prioritize Purchasing Moves and Upgrading Consumables
When you don’t have epic or legendary equipment at earlier levels, your combat power, which determines your level of expertise to take on higher challenge levels per act, is generally low.
If you want to survive and take on challenging encounters, you’ll need to unlock numerous moves that can give you a fighting chance. To gain access to these combos, you’ll need to spend gold.
There are a total of 14 moves that will be unlocked as your character levels up. You should aim to get these as quickly as possible because it makes combat more enjoyable, and you become more versatile.
When it comes to consumables, you only start with the health potion. You can unlock additional items such as stamina potions, potions of heroism, and alchemist fire, amongst others.
Raising the level of consumables increases its effectiveness. To do so, simply go to the merchant to purchase these upgrades with gold.
Look Out for Red and White Crystal Growths
In Dark Alliance, all environments have red crystal growths that drop different colored crystals like blue and purple. These are used to enhance the stats of rare and epic weapons and armor by upgrading their corresponding levels.
When you speak with a merchant in the camp, you have the option to convert crystals into the color you want so you can appropriately upgrade the gear you have, depending on what you need.
On the other hand, you’ll want to avoid passing by or hitting white crystal growth when you’re near them. These will silence your character rendering, and you won’t be able to use abilities for some time.
Choose “Loot Bonus”
After certain combat encounters, you’ll reach checkpoints that will allow you to either take a short rest or gain loot bonuses.
If you perform a short rest, you’ll be able to regain your max HP and consumables.
If you choose the loop bonus path, you won’t gain any of the short rest benefits; instead, you’ll raise the chances of acquiring more rare equipment.
You can increase your loop bonus up to a maximum of three times which you should take advantage of.
Only pick short rest if you don’t have consumables left since these randomly drop when you explore areas anyway. Note that you lose one stack of loot bonuses each time you take a short rest and not the full stack, so be sure to rest if you absolutely need to.
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Utilize Your Time in the Camp
In Dark Alliance, the camp is a sanctuary that allows you to test your moves, swap out pieces of equipment, change abilities, and so on.
You only have access to your character’s UI when you’re at the camp. This means that you won’t be able to refer to it once you’ve initiated an act.
So, for instance, once your run has begun, you can’t check your newly unlocked moves in case you forgot their combinations.
It’s essential to utilize and practice these combos in the camp beforehand. You can also swap out any of your unlocked abilities while at camp since you can only equip two abilities at a time.
You can apply attribute points and learn new feats at the camp, so it’s important to utilize your time here as much as possible to improve your chances of success while in combat.
Gain Good Equipment with Multiple Characters
Whether you’re playing with friends or by yourself, you’ll eventually want to test out other characters because of the varying abilities they offer.
The first time you play Dark Alliance, all the sections of the world map in the camp are locked, but as you complete them one by one, you’ll gradually and permanently gain access to these sections, which you can make use of on your other characters.
This gives you the advantage of completing one act and gaining at least one piece of rare equipment from the preferred gear set drop as described on the world map and checking whether or not the bonuses it gives are beneficial to your build. You can then continue with this method for other acts until you find the best set that suits your character.
Once you’ve found it, you can farm that section of the game to gain an optimal setup for your character.
Learn How to Maneuver Well In Combat
In combat, it’s essential to learn the numerous tells of enemies, especially when there are many of them surrounding you. Usually, it’s best to lock on, so you can aim directly at them.
However, the drawback is that you limit your line of sight with respect to other enemies approaching you, so pay attention to the indicators beneath and around you.
White triangles let you know when an enemy it corresponds to is a safe distance away from you. Yellow triangles are a warning sign, they’re approaching, and red triangles mean they’re already nearby and ready to pounce.
As soon as you see a red triangle, you should stop locking onto an enemy and quickly evade it to avoid incoming attacks.
Enemy AOES also has pretty good indicators on the ground. They usually have a long cast time which allows you to react and to leave the targeting circle.
More dangerous creatures also briefly gain a red outline before they unleash an extremely damaging attack, a perfect signal for you to get out of there.
Proceed With Caution When Selecting Difficulty
The difficulty spike in Dark Alliance is huge so transitioning from adventure to hero or hero to guardian is a significant step even if your combat power goes above the recommended combat score.
However, choosing a higher challenge level will increase the chances of getting more rare and better weapons and armor. But remember, you’ll have to complete a level to obtain all the loot you gathered while adventuring through it.
If you’re unable to kill the boss or decide to lower the difficulty, you won’t be able to retrieve any gear obtained from that specific run.
So, proceed with caution and raise the difficulty only when you feel you can handle it.
