Tips

### General

* Choose the right heroes for your party setup. The Assassin and Archer excel at crits, which also improves their lifesteal. The Necromancer heals the party regularly and has an innate 1% lifesteal (which isn't that much at higher ascension levels). Stuns, meaning the Paladin and Healer, are also very useful. Keep in mind that melee abilities are far less useful when using ranged weapons.
* Farm important consumables such as health, attack speed and protection potions.
* High movement speed will help you farm easier maps much faster, but it also takes up precious equipment slots. If you're struggling, swap out your movement items for lifesteal, attack speed and/or crit. If it's too easy, swap back.
* Pets can be powerful if used well. Use your first Master Box on a powerful monster, like the Ghast or Nyanlathotep (Magma Coast, Hell's Gate). See this pet guide by Meissner\_Effect for more details.

### Combat tactics

* Lifesteal rate (HP healed per second) helps your survival more than a large pool of health does - glass cannon builds can be quite useful, but beware Cthulu's burst damage.
* Make sure you hit first - attack speed, projectile speed and max range are important. Later on you will not be able to tank heavy hitters with just a large health pool as tanking doesn't scale well.
* The fastest hero gets hit a lot, ideally this should be your strongest and/or most survivable hero. During easier dungeon runs the looter should be the quickest, to avoid items being picked up by other party members; hold on to a few movement soulbounds for this reason (Striped Sandals and Cheetah Cloaks for example).
* If a party member has the "block projectiles" unique effect he should have less range in addition to slightly faster movement speed, so he stands in front of the others during combat.

### Equipment, Combining and Soulbounds

* Some of the most powerful items can only be obtained through special combination recipes.
* To increase gold earned and improve your party's equipment significantly, equip a single character with a Looter Ring (character prioritizes looting) and 3 Polished Rings (+1 looted equipment level, +3 total) - this will also guarantee you are combining the best possible gear (boss floor +3 ideally, or last non-boss dungeon floor +3).
* When combining equipment, choose the item that has a unique effect such as knockback immunity as the primary (first or left) ingredient - the resulting item will inherit the effect. A weapon's attack range, amount of projectiles and projectile pattern also follow this rule: If you combine a multishot crossbow in the primary combining slot with a staff in the secondary slot, the resulting weapon will function like a multishot crossbow.
* Good secondary ingredients have high stats, they don't need any unique effects. The Whip is a popular choice for weapons as it has the highest raw damage, for example. Not every stat carries over well from the secondary slot, see the stat percentages for more detail.
* Always combine soulbound items with the best possible equipment, and choose the right primary. Use the loot filter once you're familiar with all the different items (there aren't that many) to idle farm what you need, using the dungeon loot list.
* To maximize your soulbound items, enhance them with Power Shards after combining (Ascension level 3 and higher). The Power Shard drop chance seems to increase each time you ascend.