New Player Guide

Welcome to the DarkZone! Here are some tips to get you started. Make sure to join the discord to participate in the community!

## Playable Hunters

There are currently four playable characters in the game: Vyo Saba, Xorel, Kylian and Khamira.

* Vyo is a tank/support-type character, having full-team offensive and defensive buffs.
* Xorel is a DPS character with a faster attack rate and a self-cast offensive buff.
* Kylian is a support character, capable of healing both himself and his teammate.
* Khamira is the second DPS character to be introduced to the game. She has a slow attack rate with a special damage bonus.

Don't stress over your initial hunter choice too much; you can unlock the second currently available hunter for 100k coins and play them both.

## Character Building

This section also known as "where do I put my attribute points?"

In general, your attribute points gained per level should be split between Armor and a single offensive stat. Choose one of the following based on how it suits your playstyle and hunter:

* Auto Damage (or "AA"): The simplest build - increases your normal attack damage. Pairs with red Mods.
* Tap Damage: Less popular build, because it requires tapping the screen actively to deal damage. Pairs with yellow Mods.
* Skill Damage: Second most popular build, especially on Xorel. Buffs the damage of skill abilities, so make sure to spend money leveling them. Pairs with white Mods. Note that currently white mods are only effective in Arena. This build is best paired with green mods during the campaign because of the way skill attribute boosts by % instead of by base damage.
* Special Damage: Similar to the auto build, except it focuses on buffing elemental damage found on implants. Very weak early on since it requires specific mods on gear to deal damage. Pairs with green Mods. This build should only be selected if you find gear with over 100% total damage in each of the 4 elements. It is very effective against bosses.

## Early Game Goals

* Unlock the Gold, Chip, and Implant raiders in the Cantina for idle resource gain.
* Max all of your character skills early (they get more expensive as you level)
* Unlock all 8 of your Hitlist slots
* In the early stages you want to prioritize getting a full set of blue Implants. Once you have options between them, look for Cooldown Reduction and Crit bonuses on the right side. For the left you want Potion healing and Magnetic resistance to help with the first planet boss. Get help from the build guide for a complete list of desirable substats for general use and for your build.

## Notable achievements and stages

* Stage 80 will be the end of your first zone. This is where you should start seeing more blue gear and can decide on a character build. See the build guide above, or linked in Discord as a spreadsheet.
* Stage 320 is your first General named Bapishka. This boss has higher resistances to physical damage (tap/AA) and will be easiest to kill if you can find a partner with Skill or Special as their damage type.
* Stage 500 is your first General named Varriduuk. This boss has higher resistances to physical damage (tap/AA) as well as Magnetic elemental (This is the skill build element for Xorel) and will be easiest to kill if you can find a partner with Skill or Special as their damage type.
	+ This is a good time to unlock a second hunter, because you will unlock a second slot for idle exploration and can gain some idle levels and income from them.
* Character level 200 is the max level for Tier 1. From this point on you will need to focus on your mods and gear as a primary method of getting stronger. See the next row for attribute goals before ascending to increase the level cap.
* Stage 2000 is the end of Tier 1. After beating the final boss, you will ascend into Tier 2 and start the campaign over from stage 1 at level 200 and with an increased level cap, and stronger equipment will begin dropping.
	+ If you're interested in playing both hunters together in Squad mode, this is a good time to begin working on levelling the second hunter using mods and income from the first. They should have a nice start with gold, levels, and gear from exploration if you unlocked them at the end of planet 1.
	+ You can consider this to be the end of the tutorial. From here on out you will need to work on mods and gear optimization as your primary method of getting stronger.
	+ The monsters will get much harder here, so by this time you should be wearing mostly Purple gear and have a healthy mix of mods around lvl 55-80
	+ 200-250K HP is a good mark to shoot for with less than 1/3rd of your points in HP and the rest in damage. For AA this will be around 100K AA skill, for other builds it will vary.

## Daily Checklist

Here's all the stuff you should remember to do every day!

* Turn in your Ingredients to complete your recipe at Zandara
* Check-in at the Arena and complete the daily challenge fight
	+ Morgawr will take multiple tickets to beat. His HP only resets once per day at server reset.
* Complete your Hitlist fights - try to roll a General or a Faction Leader each day if you can for the best loot!
	+ Note that you cannot roll Faction Leaders until you pass stage 500.
* Complete your daily Quest (and work on your weekly as well)
* Collect your daily Chest at the Shop
* Collect your daily free Coins by clicking on your money total at the top of the screen
* If you're in a Guild, make sure to complete the separate list of guild quests for your daily guild chest!
* Collect your daily login rewards from the robot floating next to your hunter in the Hangar

## Rules of Thumb. Some information here is duplicated or expanded on from above.

* **Chests**
* White and Blue chests are a good source of low level gear. Purples and oranges should be saved until later for upgrading higher level gear in a pinch.
* On your Tier 1 run through Gekonuma open all white and blue chests as you get them.
	+ Wait for lvl 40 for purples, and 60 for oranges to make sure you can wear what you get. After you beat Varriduuk you may choose whether you want to save future chests to unlock at higher tiers or not.

* **Survivability and leveling**
* You should be using your first potion around stage 8. Any sooner and your HP is low, any later and you could be focusing on damage for faster stage clearing times. How you lay out your stats should accord to when you use your potions. For some players that's 1:1 AA/Armor, for others it's 4:1 depending on your mods and gear, so look at how your stages go when allocating stats.
* Skill is a very easy build to get started with, but consider by the end of Gekonuma whether you want to stick with it permanently.
* Pick a single damage type for your build and stick with it. You will be able to experiment later, respeccing is cheap and easy.
* You can see about half of your level up and down for partners in the very early stages; make sure to add a good partner as a friend. Read the stats and refresh if you don't have any partners higher than you to help you advance. This range shrinks later to 20% down 10% up.
* If you're stuck, go back 20 stages and let the auto advance bring you up. The extra levels will help you push through next time or find a better partner.

* **Resources and Gold**
* Enchantment stones are a huge bottleneck at later levels and used to upgrade gear with more slots or better substats, or trade with other players who have gear you want. Make sure to claim them every day!
* Unlock extraction in the workshop as soon as you can. Chips are your main source of growth in the near future and salvaging them is wasteful. Stash chipped items until you can extract them. The same applies to Zonium if you can make room, but that is less rare.
	+ While still on Gekonuma, it's recommended to NOT extract chips that do not complement your build. The cost will take away from early character building.
	+ Green and red chips are more valuable than white and yellow to other players. If you're not an AA build, save reds anyway to sell later.
* Pushing stages is both the easiest way to get gold, and to level up if you're not stuck. Rerunning stages is not as efficient, but will help you get some more attribute points and gear if you only need a little push.

* **Mods and Equipment**
* If you're stuck, go back 20 stages and let the auto advance bring you up. The extra levels will help you push through next time or find a better partner.
* In the early stages you want to prioritize getting a full set of blue Implants. Once you have options between them, look for Cooldown Reduction and Crit bonuses on the right side. For the left you want Potion healing and Magnetic resistance to help with the first planet boss.
	+ Get help from the build guide for a complete list of desirable substats for general use and for your build.
* The best starter mod to go with is 3\*, but don't be scared to level lower \* mods now. You'll use them to refine higher mods later (see Mods page)

* **Things to save or unlock early**
* Save unwanted resources to use for leveling unwanted mod colors later, which will be used for refining. This will preserve chips you want to use to keep rolling for higher \* mods
* White and Blue chests are a good source of low level gear. Purples and oranges should be saved until later for upgrading higher level gear in a pinch
	+ See Chests section above.