Dark and Darker: Beginner Tips & Tricks

Dark and Darker is a pretty difficult game to get into, especially if you are not used to these types of games. Most dungeon crawlers like Dark and Darker will feel more difficult when starting out. You will have very little gear and abilities, and most enemies will kill you very fast.

That being said, the game will feel much easier if you understand the various mechanics of the game and your objective. We will be looking at all that you will need to know as a beginner in Dark and Darker.

Beginner Tips & Tricks

How you play in game is very important in Dark and Darker, but alongside that, it is also important to properly set up your character before you go on your first adventure. The aspects we will be focusing on in this article are:

• Character Selection
• Perks and Skills
• Merchants
• Starting Map
• What to do When you Spawn
• PvP encounters
• Item Priority

Character Selection

While nearly all characters in this game are viable in some way, most of them aren’t very new player friendly. As a beginner, the 2 best classes to play will be the Fighter and Barbarian classes. Both of these classes are very easy to get a hang of, making them very good for new players.

The main thing to note is that both the Barbarian and Fighter are melee classes. If you take the Fighter for example, most of your combat will be basic attacks with your main weapon. You will have Perks and Skills of course, but the ones available to you will be pretty easy to use. Check out our Fighter guide for more info on how to play that class.

If you are someone who prefers ranged combat over melee combat, the Ranger class is also a viable option you can go for. The Ranger class can deal very high amounts of damage, but your overall defense will be very low.

Perks & Skills

Every class in the game will have access to Perks and Skills that they can equip before hopping into a game. Perks in Dark and Darker are passive buffs that will always be active in game. Skills on the other hand are actives that must be cast.

When starting out, you will only be able to equip one Perk. All the Perks available to the class can be equipped though, so you can pick whichever one you feel suits your playstyle the most. With just one Perk being equipable, you will want to pick Perks that are good on their own. Any Perk that boosts your overall damage or defense will be good here. As you level up, you will unlock more Perk slots, allowing you to equip more Perks.

For Skills, you will always have 2 slots available. As a beginner, defensive Skills are going to be much better early on as compared to offensive ones. New players are more likely to make mistakes, and defensive Skills will bail you out of sticky situations you put yourself in.

Merchants

Merchants are very important in Dark and Darker, as they allow you to sell the items you get through dungeon runs and buy some cool and unique items. All merchants in this game will have their very own unique quests that you can accept and complete. Completing these quests will reward you and increase the merchant’s level. As the level of your merchants increases, the items available in their stores will also increase.

When starting out, you will want to click on each merchant and accept their quest. Quests in Dark and Darker require you to do something specific or find some specific item. While exploring the dungeons, you might inadvertently complete some of these quests without even noticing. By accepting all quests beforehand, you will get rewarded even if you weren’t trying to do a specific quest.

In the Travelers and Merchants section, you can find the Squire. The Squire is a very important early-game person as he will allow you to get some very valuable gear for free. You can get the gear they offer by simply clicking on the Squire and going over to the Base Gear section under Service. Drag over any item to your character to equip it

Starting Map

There are a total of 3 different maps that you can play right now in Dark and Darker. All of these maps will be available when starting out, but the one you should go for is The Goblin Caves. This map has a very easy-to-understand layout, and most of the enemies here are fairly easy to kill.

Dark and Darker has a rotation system in which one map will be for solo play, one for duos, and one for trios. The rotation will happen every few minutes, so if the Goblin Caves are currently for trio only and you want to play solo, then just wait a few minutes for the rotation to happen.

What to do When you Spawn

Once you spawn into the dungeon, the first thing you will want to do is collect all the free loot that you can. Make sure you break all the boxes and crates around you and pick up everything that you find. The map is going to be very dark, so carefully explore each and every corner.

Most of the enemies that you run into inside the Goblin Caves will be fairly easy to take care of. Basic enemies will always have a 1 or 2 attack sequence after which they will give you a window in which you can attack them. Your main priority should always be to dodge or block incoming attacks before attacking yourself. Once you get used to enemy attack patterns, you can start playing more aggressively.

If you go deep enough into the caves, you might run into the Cave Troll, the Goblin Caves’ boss. Compared to all the enemies you’ve faced before, the Cave Troll is going to be much harder to take down. Check out our guide on the easiest way to kill Cave Troll for help with that fight.

PvP Encounters

When starting out, you should try and avoid PvP encounters as fighting other players is a very different experience to fighting AI. As you are still getting used to playing the game, PvP encounters are going to feel very hard.

If you are forced into a PvP encounter, the main thing to do is play to your class’ strengths. So if you are a melee class like the Fighter, try to get up close and fight your enemy like that. PvP fights will generally be very short, as you or your opponent will die in 2-4 hits. Always try to be extra careful and utilize all your Perks, Skills, and gear when fighting.

Item Priority

You will find loads of different items while going through a dungeon in this game. Items in Dark and Darker will have differing values, and the amount of space they take in your inventory will also be different. For example, an item like gold doesn’t have any value when playing, but it can be sold for a high amount to merchants and doesn’t take up a lot of space in your inventory.

As a new player, you will pretty much want to pick up any item you find. Most gear you find will be better than your current gear, and items like gold or treasure can be sold later on.

One issue you might run into is a full inventory. If that happens, you will want to keep items that provide good value and don’t take up a lot of space in your inventory. Gear like weapons and armor are generally going to take up a lot of space compared to treasure. If you already have better gear equipped, its better to drop the gear in your inventory and carry items that take up less space.

So there you have it, beginner tips that should help you get started in Dark and Darker. Check out our website for more guides and news regarding Dark and Darker.