Dicey Dungeons
53 Achievements
1,000
40-50h
PC
Xbox One
Xbox Series
Hard Mode Bonus Round 6
Complete all six bonus round episodes in hard mode.
90
0.29%
How to unlock the Hard Mode Bonus Round 6 achievement in Dicey Dungeons - Definitive Guide
wembleytor
TrueAchievements
TrueAchievements
This isn't a complete guide (I'm hardly an expert), but as there weren't guides posted for bonus round hard mode I figured I'd list a few tips. Warrior, Thief and robot are a lot easier so this is about the other 3.
The main change for bonus round is the addition of an extra rule each time you finish a floor. These are mostly player debuffs. RNG plays a big part here. Occasionally you get lucky and they help, but far more often you will get ones that will screw your run. The worst one I got was the combination of Singer (starting dice all the same value, normally one of the better ones) and Wisp (matching dice vanish). This meant only having a single die on every turn 1, and an abandoned run. Each time a new rule is added you get the chance to reroll it once. Do this with caution though - I've lost count of the amount of times I've rerolled a bad one only to get one even worse!
The hard mode modification is that all enemies carry upgraded versions of their equipment. This makes little difference on the first couple of floors but by floors 4 and 5 it means you are up against enemies dealing serious damage. It tends to mean that slower builds like shields and poison get overwhelmed before they can deal enough damage (with one important exception for the witch). I've seen it suggested that using weaken can counter the upgraded equipment well, but I personally never had much success trying that.
A side effect of harder hitting enemies is that the limit break powers become a bigger factor than in the other episodes.
Liberal use of save scumming (going back to main menu mid fight) makes things a lot easier. I doubt I'd have won with the witch without it. If you move back and forth on the map, the seed for your dice rolls will change, handy for getting a good first turn dice roll.
‐-------Jester-------
The biggest weakness of the Jester is that most attacks are weak. The starting deck only does single figure damage per turn and has poor upgrades. The key to the run is the cards you acquire that give the dice back. Using those you can control your deck and maximise paired cards that can either be discarded or used with limit break.
Think hard before taking new cards. The bigger your hand, the less chance of pairs. At most shops destroying cards is the better option. Get rid of the sour candys ASAP. The big choice is the 3 card pack you get on the 2nd upgrade. I like the fury one to get a good damage per turn. Freeze is good too. Shield and Poison are terrible. The 3rd upgrade gives you either duplicate or subdivide. Duplicate is way better. On the 4th upgrade, Inventor and Witch are better than Warrior. When you get to copy a card, copying a dice manipulator (ideally duplicate) is never a bad move.
-----Inventor-----
Having to destroy your equipment makes for a lot of inconsistency. Only two of your equipment can be guaranteed to be kept. Where possible I tried to maintain a loadout of two damage dealers, a utility card and then any other rubbish. Remember to check your equipment before every fight. At shops, buying as many cheap things as possible helps keep your options open.
If you get a card with a good gadget, it can be worth holding onto it in your backpack to use the gadget on floor 5 or the boss. There are some game breaking combos, and by floor 5 you may well need them. I had a Duplicate, which becomes Copy All Dice. In conjunction with Screwdriver, that can be 15 dice if you roll a 6, making light work of a strong enemy like Kraken.
Screwdriver is a great engine for the Inventor and I would always take it (and a spare if possible) if offered. As your limit break rolls sixes, this and other equipment with bonuses on a six are particularly useful.
Upgrading equipment is largely pointless before the 5th floor, since it might get discarded anyway.
-----Witch-----
By far the hardest. I spent as much time on Witch as all the others put together.
Throwing burning dice does 2 damage to the enemy and none to you. Took me an embarrassingly long time to realise this.
Put equipment needing odd dice on an even number, and even dice on an odd number.
Putting a dice manipulator on 6 and having it in a prepared slot can save wasting sixes.
Enemy Freeze means you'll get more ones than anything else, so the choice of spell for that slot is particularly important.
When levelling up take a prepared slot first, then the extra dice.
At the start, put your damage card on the prepared slot. It speeds up the first floor, and you'll probably do those first few battles many times.
After multiple failures, I found my runs got deeper when focusing on freeze, shields, or both. Anything to reduce the damage on your brittle Witch.
You usually get Hall of Mirrors fairly early, or Mirror Cauldron if you're lucky. On your 3rd level up you are guaranteed to be able to get one of Doppledice, Duplicate or Magnifying Glass. By this time you'll have your first couple of extra rules and some random equipment, and it'll be clear whether to persevere with the run or abandon. Using your mirror in combination with Doppeldice means with a little save scumming to get good starting dice you can quickly get a couple of extra dice.
My winning loadout was
1 Mirror Cauldron
2 Magic Shield
3 Glass Cauldron
4 Cold Snap
5 Doppledice
6 was never really used, started as Vise Grip then changed it a couple of times in shops for other things I ended up not using.
Doppledice and Mirror Cauldron prepared, to get an extra dice on either 3 or 6 at the start. Glass Cauldron freezes and spits out a 1, which gives an odd number for Magic Shield or Cold Snap, or a 1 for Mirror Cauldron. Then it a case of controlling the dice with Doppledice and Glass Cauldron to maximise uses of Magic Shield and Cold Snap. In hindsight Shield on 1 and Mirror Cauldron on 2 might have been better.
Thick Skin (on 3) and Vise Grip is another good combo.
The main change for bonus round is the addition of an extra rule each time you finish a floor. These are mostly player debuffs. RNG plays a big part here. Occasionally you get lucky and they help, but far more often you will get ones that will screw your run. The worst one I got was the combination of Singer (starting dice all the same value, normally one of the better ones) and Wisp (matching dice vanish). This meant only having a single die on every turn 1, and an abandoned run. Each time a new rule is added you get the chance to reroll it once. Do this with caution though - I've lost count of the amount of times I've rerolled a bad one only to get one even worse!
The hard mode modification is that all enemies carry upgraded versions of their equipment. This makes little difference on the first couple of floors but by floors 4 and 5 it means you are up against enemies dealing serious damage. It tends to mean that slower builds like shields and poison get overwhelmed before they can deal enough damage (with one important exception for the witch). I've seen it suggested that using weaken can counter the upgraded equipment well, but I personally never had much success trying that.
A side effect of harder hitting enemies is that the limit break powers become a bigger factor than in the other episodes.
Liberal use of save scumming (going back to main menu mid fight) makes things a lot easier. I doubt I'd have won with the witch without it. If you move back and forth on the map, the seed for your dice rolls will change, handy for getting a good first turn dice roll.
‐-------Jester-------
The biggest weakness of the Jester is that most attacks are weak. The starting deck only does single figure damage per turn and has poor upgrades. The key to the run is the cards you acquire that give the dice back. Using those you can control your deck and maximise paired cards that can either be discarded or used with limit break.
Think hard before taking new cards. The bigger your hand, the less chance of pairs. At most shops destroying cards is the better option. Get rid of the sour candys ASAP. The big choice is the 3 card pack you get on the 2nd upgrade. I like the fury one to get a good damage per turn. Freeze is good too. Shield and Poison are terrible. The 3rd upgrade gives you either duplicate or subdivide. Duplicate is way better. On the 4th upgrade, Inventor and Witch are better than Warrior. When you get to copy a card, copying a dice manipulator (ideally duplicate) is never a bad move.
-----Inventor-----
Having to destroy your equipment makes for a lot of inconsistency. Only two of your equipment can be guaranteed to be kept. Where possible I tried to maintain a loadout of two damage dealers, a utility card and then any other rubbish. Remember to check your equipment before every fight. At shops, buying as many cheap things as possible helps keep your options open.
If you get a card with a good gadget, it can be worth holding onto it in your backpack to use the gadget on floor 5 or the boss. There are some game breaking combos, and by floor 5 you may well need them. I had a Duplicate, which becomes Copy All Dice. In conjunction with Screwdriver, that can be 15 dice if you roll a 6, making light work of a strong enemy like Kraken.
Screwdriver is a great engine for the Inventor and I would always take it (and a spare if possible) if offered. As your limit break rolls sixes, this and other equipment with bonuses on a six are particularly useful.
Upgrading equipment is largely pointless before the 5th floor, since it might get discarded anyway.
-----Witch-----
By far the hardest. I spent as much time on Witch as all the others put together.
Throwing burning dice does 2 damage to the enemy and none to you. Took me an embarrassingly long time to realise this.
Put equipment needing odd dice on an even number, and even dice on an odd number.
Putting a dice manipulator on 6 and having it in a prepared slot can save wasting sixes.
Enemy Freeze means you'll get more ones than anything else, so the choice of spell for that slot is particularly important.
When levelling up take a prepared slot first, then the extra dice.
At the start, put your damage card on the prepared slot. It speeds up the first floor, and you'll probably do those first few battles many times.
After multiple failures, I found my runs got deeper when focusing on freeze, shields, or both. Anything to reduce the damage on your brittle Witch.
You usually get Hall of Mirrors fairly early, or Mirror Cauldron if you're lucky. On your 3rd level up you are guaranteed to be able to get one of Doppledice, Duplicate or Magnifying Glass. By this time you'll have your first couple of extra rules and some random equipment, and it'll be clear whether to persevere with the run or abandon. Using your mirror in combination with Doppeldice means with a little save scumming to get good starting dice you can quickly get a couple of extra dice.
My winning loadout was
1 Mirror Cauldron
2 Magic Shield
3 Glass Cauldron
4 Cold Snap
5 Doppledice
6 was never really used, started as Vise Grip then changed it a couple of times in shops for other things I ended up not using.
Doppledice and Mirror Cauldron prepared, to get an extra dice on either 3 or 6 at the start. Glass Cauldron freezes and spits out a 1, which gives an odd number for Magic Shield or Cold Snap, or a 1 for Mirror Cauldron. Then it a case of controlling the dice with Doppledice and Glass Cauldron to maximise uses of Magic Shield and Cold Snap. In hindsight Shield on 1 and Mirror Cauldron on 2 might have been better.
Thick Skin (on 3) and Vise Grip is another good combo.
6 Comments
For the Witch If you can find enchanted bolt the challenge becomes super easy. I just got all prepared slots and ran with enchanted bolt in each of them which would deal damage at the start of each of my turns. I got the enchanted bolt at the 3rd floor store.
By Rederin736 on 18 Sep 2022 18:16
The Witch bonus level is tough. But as mentioned above, enchanted bolt makes it much easier. If possible, try have an enchanted shield handy as well. It took me a good 25-30 tries before I finally found enchanted bolt. It got to a point where I would let the game register the loses rather than start again. It might make no difference, but worth a try.
By Hero Of Courage on 09 Dec 2022 15:08
LeakyLake
TrueAchievements
TrueAchievements
Just another tip, you can active 'Relaxed Mode' in the main menu which will reduce enemies health by 25% and does not affect achievements, makes this considerably easier.
GtoTheFORD
TrueAchievements
TrueAchievements
For the Witch on hard mode.
easiest way to win is to get the right rule change which is the weezy one.... whenever a spell is used a random die will reroll in your hand, i equipped the bronze cauldron which does 2 damage and gives you an odd dice, having doppledice and nudge.
The bronze cauldron can be reused so put that as a prepared slot, get an upgraded slot so you can put doppledice there to get extra dice. Basically you can do 50 damage in the first turn if you keep rerolling even dice.
i beat this very easily without taking too much damage.
hope this helps people who need a new tactic to win the witch.
loadoat is
1. bronze cauldron
2. whatever
3. dopple dice
4. whatever
5.
nudge
6. whatever
Just make sure you take the weezy rule change if it pops up. so over powered
easiest way to win is to get the right rule change which is the weezy one.... whenever a spell is used a random die will reroll in your hand, i equipped the bronze cauldron which does 2 damage and gives you an odd dice, having doppledice and nudge.
The bronze cauldron can be reused so put that as a prepared slot, get an upgraded slot so you can put doppledice there to get extra dice. Basically you can do 50 damage in the first turn if you keep rerolling even dice.
i beat this very easily without taking too much damage.
hope this helps people who need a new tactic to win the witch.
loadoat is
1. bronze cauldron
2. whatever
3. dopple dice
4. whatever
5.
nudge
6. whatever
Just make sure you take the weezy rule change if it pops up. so over powered
Necrophage33
These are the toughest achievements in this game. They require you to beat the Hard Mode version of Round 6 for each of the six characters. They are accessed by choosing your character, choosing Round 6, and then selecting the center set of gear with HARD written above it. Other than this marginally worse gear (you likely won't notice much of a difference), there are three things that make Hard mode harder:
For the second point, upgraded equipment in many instances won't make a huge difference. You'll likely take more damage, but the general gameplay and strategies won't change. There are some enemies that this can make a huge difference on though. One glaring example is Sneezy, an enemy that you probably don't even remember from regular gameplay. It has four countdown moves that do 3 damage each, and one piece of gear that requires a double to lower the countdown of all gear by that amount. The problem is with upgrades, that gear reduces all countdowns to zero, meaning if he rolls a double (and he almost always does), it's an instant 12 damage to you. This can be very painful early on, especially if he get two turns to do this attack. Aside from that, there isn't much you can do here other than go hard on dealing damage to get through enemy turns quicker.
The last point is the hardest part of Hard Mode. After each Floor you complete, you'll be given a choice between a displayed rule and a random rule. These rules and their affects can vary tremendously. There are a few that are actually good, such as the rare Ned rule that makes all equipment you find upgraded already, but most are negative in some way. Basically, you will be shown one rule, and then you need to decide whether to accept that rule or roll the dice for a random rule, hoping it's not as bad as the one shown. This is where the cloud save restoring from the roadmap comes in to play. After beating all enemies on a Floor and getting upgrades, buying stuff, apples, etc., before going to the exit, quit to title and then close the game app. This will force a cloud save. Now load back in, go into the exit, and roll the random rule. See what it is, but immediately press the guide button. If it's a better rule, return to playing the next Floor. If it's worse, use the cloud save restoration method in the roadmap. Using this method, you'll be able to "see" what the random rule is for each floor and decide whether you want that one or not. Unfortunately, there is no way to manipulate the RNG to change the outcome of the random rule. You're stuck with the set one or the random one.
As for the rules themselves, there are far too many options to list (easily 20-30), and pretty much every list I've seen doesn't include them all. I'm not sure if more have been added with updates or what. I will instead review some that I feel are better options, and some that are terrible options.
Good or Not Too Bad
As far as progressing and actual strategies, refer to the roadmap where I've given more character-specific details on the best way to play each one (at least based on my experience, and I beat Hard mode first try with all six characters).
- Enemies have 10% more health. If you have Relaxed mode turned on, this will barely make any difference
- Enemies have upgraded equipment. This will vary in difficulty drastically depending on the enemy and their attacks
- You get a new rule after each floor you complete. This is the main difficulty in this mode, and I'll go into this more below
For the second point, upgraded equipment in many instances won't make a huge difference. You'll likely take more damage, but the general gameplay and strategies won't change. There are some enemies that this can make a huge difference on though. One glaring example is Sneezy, an enemy that you probably don't even remember from regular gameplay. It has four countdown moves that do 3 damage each, and one piece of gear that requires a double to lower the countdown of all gear by that amount. The problem is with upgrades, that gear reduces all countdowns to zero, meaning if he rolls a double (and he almost always does), it's an instant 12 damage to you. This can be very painful early on, especially if he get two turns to do this attack. Aside from that, there isn't much you can do here other than go hard on dealing damage to get through enemy turns quicker.
The last point is the hardest part of Hard Mode. After each Floor you complete, you'll be given a choice between a displayed rule and a random rule. These rules and their affects can vary tremendously. There are a few that are actually good, such as the rare Ned rule that makes all equipment you find upgraded already, but most are negative in some way. Basically, you will be shown one rule, and then you need to decide whether to accept that rule or roll the dice for a random rule, hoping it's not as bad as the one shown. This is where the cloud save restoring from the roadmap comes in to play. After beating all enemies on a Floor and getting upgrades, buying stuff, apples, etc., before going to the exit, quit to title and then close the game app. This will force a cloud save. Now load back in, go into the exit, and roll the random rule. See what it is, but immediately press the guide button. If it's a better rule, return to playing the next Floor. If it's worse, use the cloud save restoration method in the roadmap. Using this method, you'll be able to "see" what the random rule is for each floor and decide whether you want that one or not. Unfortunately, there is no way to manipulate the RNG to change the outcome of the random rule. You're stuck with the set one or the random one.
As for the rules themselves, there are far too many options to list (easily 20-30), and pretty much every list I've seen doesn't include them all. I'm not sure if more have been added with updates or what. I will instead review some that I feel are better options, and some that are terrible options.
Good or Not Too Bad
- Ned (equipment you find is upgraded) - best possible one here. I found it once, but don't get your hopes up you'll find it
- Pirate (your first turn in every fight you get Re-Equip Next) - what this does is, on your first turn of every fight, whatever equipment you use will get put back on screen for you to use again. Same for your enemy, but it's very easy for you to make ideal use of this situation and use it to your advantage in every single fight
- Wolf Puppy (start each fight with Fury) - same situation as Pirate
- Vacuum (enemies get 10% more health) - if using Relaxed mode, this again isn't a big deal at all. An extra 3-4 health for Floor 4 and 5 enemies isn't a big deal at all by that point
- Any that changes status effects, such as affects to Burning dice, Curse percentage, Freeze reducing dice to 1, needing even dice to remove Shock, etc. These all aren't a big deal in general ,since status effects aren't that common anyway
- Anything that gives enemies a bit extra firepower, such as Bully giving them Rocks, Sorceress allowing them to throw dice, etc. These aren't really that big of a deal considering most fights are over in around three turns
- Yolanda (shops can sell any item) - this means you'll be getting stuff meant for other classes, making it way harder to put together a good build
- Rotten Apple (max health doesn't go up when you level up) - if you get this early, you're screwed. No way you're surviving with level 1 max health all the way through Floor 5 and the boss
- Cowboy (enemies always roll 6s) - in general, this is a death sentence. Some enemies won't matter, but most enemies will be doing crazy damage to you every single turn
- Keymaster (can't make more than six moves per turn) - this will destroy the Thief and the Jester entirely, and it's guaranteed to be a problem for some other classes too
- Cornelius (lose 10 max health) - this can make things really rough, especially on Floors 4 and 5
- Wisp (duplicate dice rolls immediately disappear) - not a problem for the Robot but for everyone else, you'll be hurting very fast when you are constantly missing one or more dice per turn
- Scathach (Cursed at the start of every turn) - Curse is the absolute worst statue effect in the game. It's impossible to fully plan around, and losing one action per turn is brutal when you can't predict it
As far as progressing and actual strategies, refer to the roadmap where I've given more character-specific details on the best way to play each one (at least based on my experience, and I beat Hard mode first try with all six characters).
- The Warrior and Thief will likely pose no real problems for Hard mode. They are both very easy and straightforward to use and build.
- The Robot is likewise relatively easy. Get Processor Overflow ASAP so you can use it at the end of each turn to build up some nice damage. The Robot also isn't impact by many rules because of the way he uses dice, so he isn't bad to use.
- The Inventor is tough. What I did was keep my best gear in my backpack, which is counterintuitive. For example, I got a Flamethrower and kept it in my backpack, and upgraded it there. I would only keep one really good equipment in my inventory, one decent one, and two I didn't mind sacrificing. I spent all my money on Scrap items in shops to ensure I always had something crappy to sacrifice and never had to get rid of something good. I amassed good upgraded gear in my backpack to have ready for the boss fight, and found all other fights with one or two good pieces of gear and two throwaway ones. Your gadget is incredibly helpful, so if you're lucky enough to find a Screwdriver, take it and keep it. Two gadget uses per turn is huge. Never upgrade anything except for the couple best things you plan to keep til the end, otherwise it's a waste. You should upgrade two damage dealing weapons to bring to the final boss with you. Like I said, I kept an upgraded Flamethrower in my backpack for the boss so that I could use my Focus to get a guaranteed 24 damage from that one attack, which basically was 50% of the boss's health in one turn. NOTE: there is one other strategy I haven't tried but sounds hilarious and effective for the final boss (credit to Abluestickynote): keep the Berlin Key that you start with in your backpack and bring it with you to Floor 5. Equip it for the final fight on Floor 5, and sacrifice it when the fight is over. This will give you a gadget that swaps all of your gear with your opponent's gear. Now, before the boss fight, move all of your gear to your backpack so you have nothing equipped. Use your gadget in the fight and you'll take all of the boss's attacks, and give them your zero attacks, making it a hilarious cakewalk to finish the fight
- The Witch is by far the hardest character in the game thanks to needing to bring your spells to the play area first before you can use them, and only having four on screen at once. However, read the tips in the roadmap. There were a ton of nuances I embarassingly didn't know until right near the end of my Hard mode run, and I spent half an hour redoing fights because I was in a bad position thanks to not knowing those things from the getgo. I mention this in the roadmap too, but go for Prepared Slots when you level up. Nothing is better than that. Prepared Slots mean you don't need to rely on dice rolls to call up the spells you want to use, saving you precious turns and RNG. Stick with versatile damage dealing spells, such as some that need high rolls, some with low rolls, etc., so you're good to use all dice that you can. If you have some particularly good spells, don't hesitate to put it in multiple Prepared Slots. I had one gear that did 3 damage at the start of every turn and 4 damage with any dice. I put this in all four prepared slots for a guaranteed 21 damage per turn against the boss.
- The Jester is thankfully far easier than the Witch and Inventor. The play style is different, but he's very fun and easy to use. The main thing here is to make your desk as small and compact as possible, rather than adding as many cards to it as possible. You don't want any cards in there that aren't helping you deal damage (or heal), and you definitely want as many pairs as possible, both for discarding to get through the deck and for when you use for limit break. Every shop, I paid to destroy a card, and I always destroyed either useless singles (although you shouldn't have any of these if you don't buy or collect random ones from chests unless they're really good) or on the third or fourth duplicate of a card. I would destroy down to pairs of cards instead of having three or four of the same one. You'll assuredly find the Jester to be way easier and more fun than the previous two characters
