Dicey Dungeons

As this game is heavily reliant on "luck" (randomness), I'm gonna divide the solution in three parts: General tips, Elimination Round Tips, and specific tips for Round 4. I assume you are following the natural order of selection (Warrior > Thief > Robot > Inventor > Witch > Secret Character), so this should be your Fourth Inventor Run.

General Tips

Playing on Xbox or PC, if a fight is going wrong, or you die in a fight, you can press Start / Options and return to Title Screen. Just don't accept your defeat when prompted and you can return in time. You will revert to the previous place you where before the fight, giving you another chance to tackle the enemy. This is not cheating as it was designed in mind by the developers, and can be exploited in many forms. I will list the common ones here:

• You take too much damage in a fight. Specially hurtful on the lower floors where you have to beat 3-4 enemies to level up and fully heal. As a rule of thumb, ignore taking damage on the first two floors (you almost heal instantly due to full hp leveling), but try to take the least possible damage onwards. Taking 10 Dmg per enemy is the best and very hard on later episodes, but managing your Healing Apples is crucial. Just take into account how many they are and try to "unlock them" early on a new floor. Usually you can beat any fight with 20 HP, targeting a full heal leveling when you end it.

• You made a mistake in a turn where you could dish greater damage doing using your equipment in a different way. It's a free and unpunished reset, so make the most out of it. Also, you can change your equipment if you see the enemy is specially weak to some strategy, like having low number of dice or equipment, which makes them more vulnerable to Weak, Shock, or Lock Dice.

• You rely on exact dice numbers (values) to pull your strategy on the first turn. The game uses seeds to generate the dices' value in a fight for you and the enemy, so in theory even when you lose one time you can try another time and have the luck of them not getting good numbered dices. The way to reset the seed (change the randomness and thus obtain another set of numbered dices in the start of the fight) is to change equipment before going to the fight (like rearranging it, or changing one with another, etc.), visiting a shop or healing with an apple. Basically, do anything that could trigger an autosave and you will have another shot with the randomness. One time I could beat the Dire Wolf with only 6 HP as the Thief after some resets, so it's worth giving it a shot. However, some enemies like the Banshee are so hard it cannot be 100% foolproof.

• My order of preference to upgrade equipment is the following: Reduce slots > Improve ailments/buffs/damage > reduce value on costly equipment > eliminate odd or even requirement > +1 damage > use equipment more than once. This can be subjective and considered a matter of personal taste, but I have done most of the episodes in one, or at most two rounds, having no regrets after upgrading. When in doubt, follow your current strategy, more often than not leads to victory.

Elimination Round Tips

The game jumps in difficulty on these rounds. However, two in particular are what makes or breaks a 100% Completion: Inventor and Witch. They can be pure sadism from developers and have you restart many times because something goes wrong. I will assume you are following by now my general tips.

All enemies have 10% Health and upgraded equipment. While you can't do anything about the first, you can diminish the effects of the latter. For you to succeed, ailments are your new best friends. I will recommend how to use them on these elimination episodes in the following list, but the advice can be used in other episodes as well.

• Burn - Enemies take 2 HP Dmg when using a dice. Only worth on enemies that take double damage from fire, as they take 4 HP Dmg. You could fare better with the other ailments, so don't prioritize it.

• Freeze - The highest numbered dice (value) is converted to one. Multiple freeze ailments reduce the highest numbered dices in order. This ailment work wonders when fighting enemies that rely on big numbed dices (Value>4), like Space Marine or Rhino Bettle (the heavy hitters). It makes a joke of the Cowboy Cat, as he can one shot you if you don't measure him appropriately with a lot of six, but having one makes him an unharmful kitten. Aside from that, you can't go wrong with this ailment, fairly better than Burn.

• Shock - Shocks (locks) one random equipment having to release it with one dice, no matter the value. It is your way to go on these elimination rounds, as Hammer (do X electric Damage, on 6, shock one random equipment) is often easy to obtain on the first floors. Devastating for enemies relying on few dices and equipment. While it is random, it doesn't override weaken. If you do 3 Weaken and 1 Shock and the enemy has 4 gears, they will be applied randomly one equipment each, instead of stacking, which is nice. However, one weakness of this combo/strategy is that the enemy will only have to use one dice to unlock an upgraded equipment, which depending on your luck, can be nasty.

• Weaken - Returns one random equipment to a weaken state. Equipment in this game have three states:
• • Weakened State- The worst version of the equipment, can render it useless or hinder a strategy in a turn.
  • Normal State- Standard versions, what you usually get and the enemies on the previous rounds. Nothing too fancy or impactful.
  • Upgraded State- These can easily win a game by themselves. The best version of any equipment can sometimes dish ridiculous damage or devastating effects with low cost. Really dangerous if randomness favors you.
  Having explained these states, what makes weaken the best ailment for elimination rounds and onwards it's the easiness to get/do them and how they hinder enemies. Weaken returns any equipment, upgraded or normal, to a weaken state. This means that you can actually impact twice the enemy strategy with it. Reversing an upgraded equipment to a weaken state can make many fights on these rounds a breeze. Prefer it over anything else, and pair it with Shock if you cannot weaken all the enemy equipment.

There are many other ailments but these are your bread and butter. Some of them, like blind, are useless as AI always know the values beforehand, or difficult to pull off for some characters, like lock dice, so I don't consider them as they are very situational.

Finally, you don't have to beat everyone. You can finish the last boss and don't get frustrated if you get to at least level 4, which means skipping at least one enemy. Always target those enemies that open many places like a shop or apples first. Talking about shops, try to buy useless equipment early on so you can scrap it while having your best stored or not in danger (you have to scrap one equipment always, and as it is random, it can trash your run hard). On the last floor before boss (floor five), just try to get to the boss. Having 20+ HP should be enough to have a shot if your strategy is solid. There is no shame in skipping fights, because it can force you to scrap something you didn't want. If you are good with what you have, you are fine to beat the boss.


Inventor Elimination Round Tips

Ah, the inventor run. Easily one of the hardest (paired with the witch) characters to play, due to the single fact that he has to scrap one equipment from three randomly chosen from your equipped ones after a fight and convert it to an ability to use the next fight. It doesn't sound that bad on paper, but oh boy, on third floor onwards you start feeling the difficulty skyrocketing. By now you should get a hang of how the Inventor goes, but here are my tips if you get stuck and hopefully you don't have to do 40+ tries. These advices helped me to finish this elimination round on the second run (lucky!), so I hope they do as well. I assume you read the other tips beforehand:

• On the first two floors, try to only use three equipment. Always have the equipment you don't like as an option for scrap. The earlier you get rid of useless or hindering equipment, the better. Try to save gems like Boomerang (Do 2X dmg to enemy, but X dmg to yourself, even better upgraded as it only deals to you -3 HP) for scrapping before the last boss, as it gives you Fury (double your action), which can humiliate the last boss. The Boomerang equipment as an ability is an almost guaranteed insta-win for any situation, as you can deal double damage, double ailments, and even double buffs for no cost.

• For the other three floors before last boss, prefer ailment-inducing equipment over simple damage, unless you can get something like Boomerang, Crystal Sword, or Keyblade that helps you defeat enemies faster. Weaken is your way to go, along with Shock. If you are in a situation where you are in a floor wounded (<20 HP) and only one remaining enemy before leveling, go to the other floor. As you are not targeting to get to your last level (not worth it IMO) unless you are a masochist, is better to defeat an enemy on a new floor as you will get other enemy options to choose. Let me elaborate: in a new floor, you usually can fight at least two enemies. Some are easier than others. Then, the exit is also usually barricaded with two forced fights. However, if you fight and level on the previous floor with the path open, you are gonna level up, but will be damaged on the new floor without actually advancing on your path to the boss. This game has a secret component I call level/floor management which can make runs easier if you juggle it. A path with two upgrade/shops and an apple? Worth a fight. Only have one apple after a lvl 4 enemy? skip it. The risk/reward is not worth it, even by manipulating the randomness.

• Scrapping is not an ally as you can sometimes think, but more of a punishment. If you are gonna get hindered by scrapping something good, there is little hope a chest will have what you need. Always have a backup plan. Bumping equipment is safe to scrap, as well as shields. The equipment that clone dices can be helpful for difficult fights.

• Only do one or two upgrades generally, but don't buy them. You can get upgrades for leveling up or as a floor reward, and apply them for ailment-inducing equipment. As a rule of thumb, if the upgrade is not impactful enough, scrap the equipment if possible. Do not discard the slot reduction instantly, as a equipment that uses only one slot instead of two can do wonders for squeezing another ability that can be scrapped, like a shield, which is better as an scrap ability than as an equipment. This elimination round is not easy for experimentation, so if it works, then don't move it. Also, as a side note, scrapping upgraded equipment give the same ability as the normal version, so don't waste an upgrade while thinking about scrapping that equipment. As a rule of thumb, upgrade the most impactful equipment for your strategy, and don't lose it on scrapping, as it will be with you until last boss.

• Keep your money for the merchant's healing apples (they heal more than floor apples) and equipment useful enough to be scrapped after finishing the fight.

Thank you for reading this far. Have fun!