Overview
Continuously Updated. Was a short guide to getting started in Dragon Cliff, is now quite lengthy. I hope this is useful to some, comments and questions are absolutely welcome. Thank you for stopping by, happy hunting and good luck.
Introduction
Welcome to Dragon Cliff, A town management game with a few RPG themes thrown in too. And combined very well if I may say so. As you progress through each stage and level pay attention to what the elemental types are best for each and remember that sometimes the best way around being stuck is to go another way around. Good luck, happy hunting and I hope you enjoy your time here as much as I have.
Getting Started Farming: updated March 2020
If you follow me here we can go from day 0 to gear level 8 in about 1500 days or less. All you need to do is run the first level a few times and gather some crafting materials. With this and your first 3 whites make some gear and clear level 2. It is important to focus what few practice points you have on the characters you are going to use. I started with two purples and got them to level 15 while the rest stayed at 1. This is where I got some legendaries and one ancient and those 5 became my team from the start. From there I leveled the team up to around 50 and this allowed the team to run all the basic quests and start farming. As you hit a new area and get new levels of equipment use the time to equip them before you push on.
Recap: Focus on leveling ONLY your initial team, whatever 5 orange rarity adventurers you get use them. Pushing the level of 1 character higher will let him cake-walk the introductory levels. From there just gather in between level gaps and the only problem is gold production. Focusing this way you can clear normal mode within 12 hours. From there focus on just autorunning the first hard levels a bit and get stronger applicants to include Ancient Star form adventurers and Inn applicants. Once you hit hard mode and unlock the next few levels of gear and gems bounce back to normal mode and get scrolls for your active team. Once you’ve finished up making sure everyone has the ancient star enchantments on weapon, armor and scroll, with necklace and devices you’re ready for the Mystic Dimension.
On hard mode the best thing is just get easy weapons and materials early on, build your stockpile. I spent the next 2 days harvesting materials and on day 3 moved to scroll creation so I bounced back to normal mode for getting the materials faster. The goal for beating hard mode is to get a viable necklace and device set and push your equipment up to the highest possible for where you are on. Right now at day 4 I’m at level 10 while mass producing level 8 gear for decomposing.
Unlocking level 8 gear is not hard and it should be the goal but look at each level as required stages. I had to at least upgrade to level 7 gear to fight and win easily on the levels to get started with level 8 gear. A good example from level 7 to 8 is when I upgraded the Bun Sister, she went from hitting for about 20k to 80k by changing her weapon and armor to the level 8 versions.
The need for level 2 material drops is assisted by the sailing voyages and breaking down level 8 ancients you no longer need. Hopefully it will get to the point where your boats are very very profitable. Still, look at everything as a need to acquire and consume it in bulk and devise a way that works for your play style to get to your goal.
Don’t be afraid to leave the game on autorun overnight to get enough materials for your day.
There be gold here!
Since gold is the crux most of the game runs on we will operate on the assumption we need lots of it and constantly. To do this we need good townsfolk, specifically ones that up weapon and armor profits and productivity. In this specific case quality is not as important. Once you have acquire a few hours of materials fill your weapon and armor facilities production queue with a weapon / armor and set it to autosell everything you don’t want. This will allow you to focus your elsewhere.
There are two theories on what is the best gold, and in my book lower leveled but mass produced armor and weapons are more efficient compared to max leveled gear which sells for more but takes considerably longer to make. This means if I can produce 5k level 1 swords in the time it takes to make 50 of a higher level but only slightly increased value… my best bet in the long run would be the cheaper and faster to make level 1 weapons as I would be constantly cashing them in for smaller yet more rapid and sustained profits vs slower and only slightly more valuable.
Hard Mode: Farming gold in hardmode is pretty easy if you use three level 3 boats going on auto, have your furnaces mass-creating level 8 gear to be decomposed into demon shards. I auto-sell anything that isn’t ancient or above since combining purples gets quite pricey when you are doing it en-masse.
Build up your stash! Starting early will ensure you have to spend less time on it overall, some parts of the end game are very expensive. By the end game you should try to sit on a few billion in gold and a few hundred million in crafting components.
Grinding the practice points
Practice Points Per level: Operating at 1000% PP farming is essential to getting to level cap, so plan to spend some time acquiring the right residents for your town. Once you get the bonus set you need to figure out what to run. You need to decide if it’s better to run a lower level dungeon 50 times in the span it would take you to run the max level you can only a handful of times. With this matrix I tend to go towards many many lower levels very quickly, versus the higher levels more slowly.
Also pay attention to what events you leave running and how many PP’s they eat up, it is very easy to forget and come back to find them all gone from the events.
When you hit the Mystic Dimension and gain the ability to buy Practice Points in bulk boxes it makes life much much easier.
Team Setup: Normal to Hard
Things to keep in mind: Enemies that are higher level than your team will have a significant boost to their resistances and outputs when compared to your team. If you are stuck, the first thing I suggest is leveling up to match or exceed the enemy you are facing. Also think about what elemental types are effective on the level you are currently running? What difference resistances do you need versus the last? Some rounds require different ways of going about it, patience will be your ally here.
The basics of your team will determine how long and how hard combat is. Certain classes are designed to work together and create a symbiosis. If you carefully select and cultivate a team that compliments each other well the levels will get much easier. A Fire Assassin is powered up by the basic attack of the Fire Player, which is nice but not required. Gear that works together to deal damage, reduce enemy resistances and boost your own output is ideal, and there are class specific scrolls and equipment enchantments some of which are level gated to certain points.
When I first started and before I hit hard mode I used to always use the fairy gem set for the chance at counter-attack and the swift skill, but the skills have really been leveled out and there are many good choices. Some stages may require you to have a resurrect skill, no tank, or suppress enemy regeneration etc.
Fire Assassin: This character hits with physical damage so use phys damage increase on him not fire. Also his special ability makes him the top tier character for dps output. His Fire God ability to attack every 1 combat second makes him unstoppable until Hard Mode. You can push this further by taking the passive skill that does random targeted output damage as well. This character can easily hit for 1.2 million after the first attack if he consumes fire seeds.
Common DPS Characters: Fashion Boy (Crit Hit build) Fire Assassin, Fire Player, Red Horn, Cube, Iron Soldier, Killer
Support: Ice Maiden, Night Blade, Cube, Elemental Wizard, Drunk Reader, Missionary, Golden Shaman
Main tank: Warrior / Paladin / Tactician
This was a team I ran with for quite a while.
I am currently running a Damage Reflection Team comprised of a Killer, Bun Sister, Tactician, Missionary and a Golden Shaman. Each team member has a skill or power that bolsters another team member.
Actual Combat: What, where and why.
With our team set up now we need to get out and fight! First off you need a Paladin to survive the normal mode higher levels, there is little way around it. His ability to taunt all on hit and then have higher resistances at Max Rage is essential. This will give your casters some breathing room as he tanks all the hits, but in order for this to be effective you need to be utilizing his immune to status effects ability at the START of every round, do not expect to win a round if the enemies are smashing your face in with status effects. Also, use status effects on the enemy, a 9% chance of stun with life drain is a tactical win. Do not depend on a lone or dedicated healer! It is simply too slow and underpowered to be effective. The best way is to have each character self heal through damage output. The last thing I want to note about combat is the actual battle time, auto-run battles usually don’t last more than 3.5 seconds of “turn time.” Early on the enemy will usually get to each act once but that’s usually about it besides boss battles and the levels with millions of hp, deep down in the Mystic Dimension they take much more to get through. Prepare for the rounds proactively instead of reactively.
Early on
Normal Mode and Early Hard Mode: Always start the battle with the idea of defending first, then attack. If you plan for the enemy to attack you, then you are in a sense the controlling combat. A trap is much less effective if you know it is a trap. With the taunt skill you can direct most enemy damage to your tank, perfect! Next you need to start chewing through the enemy resist skills, I use a weapon and the warrior to do this effectively. One weapon steals 3 types of resist, Physical, Fire, and Divine, which is complimented by the Warrior doing his basic attack and his Tactic which both reduce their resistances further. By doing this every member of my team hits harder and I’ve ground down about 1/3rd overall resistances with only 1 character. I also have every member with the “Wearer has a 50% chance of attacking when a team member gets hit” 4x fairy gem. If one enemy attack can trigger my entire team, then tactically every attack they make is something I want and helps me and only adds fuel to the fire.
Damage Interactions and the action stack:
Damage Processing If we follow the damage process as it moves, I think understanding it will help you refine your offense and defense. So to begin, let’s take any regular direct damage attack and track how it goes out to the target. This is also understanding we are skipping the critical damage check at this step on going out.
The first step is the full damage value hits the Damage Reflection rate and the damage reflected is added to the bottom of the action stack. Now, the damage moves into two types of shields, the first is regular absorb and the second at least two separate types of damage negation or reduction. Finally, the adjusted damage values are checked against the corresponding elemental resistances and the damage value remaining is applied against the hit points of the target. At this point the source of damage’s skills and effects also will trigger here; in whatever form that may be (planting a fire seed, etc.) Once the remaining skills and effects resolve then damage has been caused from the example attack, and it is here that the action stack takes over.
The next action on the example stack is for the DMR damage to resolve and then to activate any skills caused from the damage being reflected. DMR is applied as real damage without regard to resists/absorb shields or any saves. [Dungeon bonuses can still negate or reduce this effect, in fact the Mystic Dimension is designed in the latter levels to mitigate these effects because otherwise as soon as the enemy hit you, they would have killed themselves…]
Once all modifiers are tallied up, the reflected damage is applied and any possible “soft” skill and /or enchantment from the DMR damage will activate. This means that any “on damage” soft skills or passive abilities will now activate. This process can be many skills deep as well, with heal on hit, heal on getting hit etc can also have secondary triggers and may activate.
(Note: DMR damage is a soft damage type and can not trigger hard activated skills or effects – regardless if it comes from them to you, or you to them. Also to clarify personal passive effects will still trigger, such as reactions to loss of hp.) This is where the Fairy Gem set, or other devices would collect and activate as well. (For example, if you had 4 devices that collected upon taking damage or reflecting damage, they would have had their chance to activate here and if sufficiently charge a device such as poisonous needle would also activate however their actions would go below the damage reflected on the action stack.)
Real Damage: This one is easy, example source applies real damage to target, target is hit for full value without regards to level difference, any resists, or most negation shields. This damage should still hit when the enemy has resist all enchantment / bonus. It is incredibly powerful.
Direct Damage
Damage Types: There are 3 distinct types of damage, the first is direct damage.
(AS = Ancient Star)
1. Direct Damage – This is most commonly damage caused by a character or monster as it’s main attack as their turn progresses. Direct damage triggers skills, enchantments, gem effects, devices, necklace set bonuses – etc. Most of your early combat strategy should be built around the functions of the team you are taking into battle and how they work together. A good example is how the AS Missionary’s heal to Tank types reflects damage between 1500-5000% to a random enemy as real damage.
Suggestions for a DPS based team:
Warrior – Sunder is the best skill for DPS team type, given how much it takes away enemy resists, if you can supplement this ability with a steal resists of the 3 main types you output it becomes very effective. In this role he is the party tank and support role by debuffing the enemy. If you couple this tactic with a weapon enchantment that steals resistances that correspond to the damage you are doing he excels at his job.
Street Man – When in prime AS form, he will naturally have 5 extra hits, plus the scroll giving him 3 more hits on crash, making it hit 11 times on first use, going up by 3 every time it is used further. The Street Man by himself can walk out long after everyone else is dead, when built right he is able to dispel all positive effects from the enemy while doing substantial output to the enemy.
Tough Woman – She is a fantastic addition if you do not select her final skill point, taking away one of her effects is not compensated enough by the 3 final point options. Supplement this with a Missionary and Golden Shaman’s ability to give free casts for abilities and the Tough Woman will make your team lap the enemy with their attacks several times over per chance they get to attack.
Fashion Boy – #5 rated DPS. With a high crit hit and crit damage build the Fashion Boy can hit an enemy on average 7 times per regular attack, each successive hit has a chance to do higher damage. His scaling is very powerful when built correctly and in the late game.
Young Warlock – The #1 DPS output AS adventurer BAR NONE. When in the AS form this adventurer is something scary on the battlefield, I have one with a 99.9% chance to steal int as his AS ability, to bolster this I also put a steal int enchantment on his weapon too which makes it stack even farther.
Bun Sister – I used two of these to beat normal mode and pushed into the MD with just two Legendary versions. With a beefy vitality they are more tank type than most paladin builds can ever be and their tactic output can do incredible amounts of damage.
Fire Charger – Very capable DPS when in AS form, non AS form is not very useful. See further below.
Red Horn – #2 rated DPS, highlighted by his AS form. The scroll ability to steal STR on kills when supplemented with the Poisonous Needle device gives him the ability to kill whatever happens to be in front of him.
Damage Over Time
The second damage type is the most under-rated in my opinion, and is Damage over Time which is commonly referred to as a DoT. This game handles DoT’s slightly differently so please see the note below. What this means is every elemental damage type that can generate a DoT can supplement that goal.
This is a ‘soft’ damage in that it does not trigger abilities that activate on taking damage. This damage is often a residual debuff from an attack or spell that does damage upon the conditions being met such as fire seed, poison debuff or any other type that is an effect on the target.
NOTE: All damage over time effects can stack, but instead of stacking layers, they stack damage values: remaining damages + new damages.
The AS Fire Charger has an incredible star ability that gives him ALL elemental damage types as his normal hit output type. This effectively means he hits 7 times per attack if he is also using the bleed effect enchantment he will also be dropping a DoT with each elemental type. And his special ability to explode DoT’s on a target that will then go off at a higher damage rate means he is a cold blooded killer.
Real Damage
The third damage type is Real Damage – This is a unique and very powerful damage type. This damage does its actual value, without regards to any Elemental Resist or damage reductions. Damage Absorb will still tank this damage if available, but this is only an untested theory at this point. Real damage values are unaffected by critical hit rate or damage per second rate.
The best non star ancient character to output real damage is the Bun Sister with a very high vitality. When combined with the Prince Necklace set, this multiplies her output by the 400% which can become very powerful quickly.
Note: DMR damage is done as real damage.
Damage per Second vs Damage Reflection rate
To understand combat we need to look at the damage interactions of each style and compare what goes where, to start we will examine direct damage and damage over time as all in one. So example team hits with basic attack, damage processes. Attack value hits absorb first, reduce second and third, now resist values and resilience values are applied and the remaining portion left over is applied as hard damage. These numerous layers are exactly where and why hard damage fails vs real and reflect damage teams.
First problem is you are under-leveled compared the higher leveled monsters in the MD which causes a HUGE chasm between you and them. Your attacks are weaker and less often and theirs are the opposite. Further it becomes difficult in the latter Mystic Dimension to maintain the buffs and positive layers needed to make the Poisonous Needle device fully viable. Next is the dungeon bonuses that can further reduce damage and often the enemy will have insane levels of HP regen. Hard damage is also often caused by 1 character in the team while the other 4 support and enable them. This caps dps with skill timer, rage cost and supporting builds. While DPS is great and often the only choice early on the later portion of the Mystic Dimension will truly test a DPS build. (In my book your team is good if it can pass level 1500) Most falter out around floors 500-1000 and are forced to switch to a DMR build. I’ve only seen one DPS build from a player that could go deep and maintain the output.
Reflect Damage: Planning for battle this way is almost sinister. Think about it for a minute, everything you are doing is going into battle, presenting your chin then when the enemy hits you all their friends wilt and die and you just wave hi to the 2 survivors. Perhaps offer them a second chance or something at this point it’s up to you. There is a fundamental preparation and equipment difference in trying to live as long as possible versus doing damage and attacks.
Using the Thorns necklace set is under rated, most people don’t understand that the value of DMR is calculated and updated the moment it is changed. The proper way to examine your DMR multiplier is to look at each adventurer, add their DMR up on a calculator then multiply that by 200. This value is for each character as they walk into battle!
This value is then further multiplied by the final damage calculation of enemy resist * 1000 dmr rate as combat goes on. Yes, that value is then multiplied by a further 1000.
For example, the Ancient Star conjurer can have his ability add up to 75% DMR rating to EACH party member. Remember that as soon as the DMR rating for any character changes the Thorns recalculates and distributes the increased bonus before any further actions are taken on the stack. Giving 75% to 5 characters is a fantastic bonus for this and compliments other skills and team builds. This bonus can get very high, very quickly if you build around reflect damage as a party. At this point all you are trying to do is stay alive after their own hit blasts them with billions of damage for the attempt.
There are several characters that make a great DMR team, try a few and find out for yourself what works and what doesn’t.
Gems and Materials
Hard Difficulty Materials: The easiest way is to have a full team with harvest boosting gear and run an easy level quickly for hours on end. I’m not sure what the limits on materials are but I tend to sit on a stockpile of 20-40 million of each which is far more than I’ll ever need. Using the Autorun method on levels, set your forges to produce gear to be sold and when you come back you should find yourself with enough gold for a while.
Gems: Sets are important and the stats as they level up are also the biggest reason to do said leveling, despite the random nature of stat rolls as they level up. I understand it sounds contradictory but the actual stats don’t matter as much in relation to min/max until Gem Level 25. Until then, it is bulk in, few out. I did the math a while back and it will take 2187 level 19 gems to make 1 level 25 gem.
Demon Shards: High level Weapons, Armor and Scrolls will require Demon Shards to fabricate as well as the level 2 base materials of hide etc. Starting off what I focused on was crafting level 8 gears, selling anything below Legendary and combining them into ancient gear to then be decomposed. Once you get fairly deep in the Mystic Dimension it becomes possible to buy them from the store and thereby is significantly faster.
Ash of Hope: Getting ash in bulk is best done on a level that you can autorun quickly and with as small of failure margin as possible. Starting off will be slow, but it will become worth it very quickly once you start buying the boxes sold in the shop with the ash you’ve earned.
Mystic Dimension
The current Meta game for the MD is Damage Reflection set bonus with the chaotic flow device. The team make up can get deep with pretty much any variation of the following. Also worth noting until I switched to a reflection team, I was using the Prince Set amulet, which doubled the damage the Bun Sister was doing. This allowed her to be hitting for 2-3 mil easy and pretty much cake-walked most of the path down into the deeper parts of the MD.
Tank: Paladin, Tactician, Warrior, Killer
DPS: Bun Sister
Support: Chubby Lady / Tough Woman / Night Blade / Conjurer
Healer: Missionary / Golden Shaman
My current team is: Killer, Bun Sister, Conjurer, Missionary and Golden Shaman. Each one builds on the skills and abilities of the others. Star Ancient are very, very powerful and worth it.
Getting started: To get started the tank needs to be beefy able to hold the focus of the group, Support needs to bolster resists (Bright Circle) and stop enemy healing (Nightblade). Between the missionary and golden shaman pair, they keep everyone else alive. There are also ways to use the Streetman as a DPS by extending the number of times his Crush skill hits also the Fashion Boy can be an insane hitter as well with the correct Crit Hit build.
NOTE: Do NOT run the enchantment “sacrifice’s 20% of life to resurrect a slain team member” with a DMR set!
If you do, the 20% sacrifice damage will -multiply- upon hitting the DMR shield and splash to the rest of the team. I’m not sure why the damage from sacrifice hits the team, but that is how the developers intended it.
The most important character is actually the Bun Sister. Get her Vitality as high as you can and her special ability will one or two shot most lower enemies, and ends up being nullified on or about level 750. I had 2 in my team for a while and that really helped chew down into the MD because the regular attack skill just beefs up the entire teams defenses to an incredible level and the second attack is the best AoE attack I’ve seen. To be fair though, a well built Tough Woman can be just as impressive, especially with her ability to jump everyone’s turns forward.
Getting Past MD 1000:
This is where you will have to switch to a DMR set, the reasons are as follows:
1. Damage over Time is not viable because the enemies carry a refresh skill that removes all status effects within 1 turn of being placed.
2. The Dungeon blessings the enemies get will start getting very powerful and hard to mitigate.
3. The enemies will start having 100+ million hp and beyond into the billions.
4. The DPS multiplier from Poisonous Needles no longer scales up enough to surpass the resists and blessings combined which will throttle your output to a fraction of what it was.
5. DMR provides a damage reduction which will extend the probability of living through boss attacks.
6. Real and Reflected damage types are still viable and reflected type is NOT nerfed by the 90%.
7. Moving to DMR from DPS means much more Vitality and support stats from gems are possible. This can translate into huge advantages if tweaked properly.
Ancient Star Adventurers
Coming Soon. I will do my best to have the entire list with a range of stat rolls for the Star Ability. I hope this will help guide people in choosing what Star Ancients to keep and which to get rid of. Values for the ability will be in the description by an X value, and the ranges I’ve discovered will be in brackets. It will look like this. Skill adds X% to output. ( 5 – 14.3%)
Warrior: Has X% chance to taunt on hit. X% chance for taunt to not be resistible.
Duelist: Increases Damage Reduction created by Iron Blood Skill by X%. ( 8 -16.9%)
Tactician: Increases base damage of Grand Strategy by X% and increases targets DMR and X%. Can stack up to 10 times.
Paladin: Taunt has X% chance to be not resistible. ( 34 – 45.8%)
Street man: Adds X extra hits to the Crash Skill. ( 1 – 5 ) Each hit reduces enemy ERR by 200% of Street Man’s Resistance rating for 1 turn, can stack 5 times. This can not be resisted.
Fire Player: Fire Breath has X% chance to deal 2 extra hits on each target.
Young Warlock: (See attachment)
Conjurer: (See attachment)
Elemental Wizard: (See attachment)
Cube: Adds X hits to Formless. ( 1 )
Missionary: Heals to a tank type reflect X% of heal value as Real Damage to a random target. ( 1500 – 4800% )
Killer: (See attachment)
Fashion Boy: Each hit of Meteorite has X% chance of dealing 200% damage of the previous hit, otherwise it deals 100% damage of previous hit. Increases Fashion Boy HRA by 20%. (25 – 54%)
Snow Maiden: Has EHR equal to level * 10. EHR from gear increased by X (9.7%) In addition when Snow Maiden kills an enemy unit receives 20% increase to EHR up to 5 stacks. Can not be dispelled and lasts through the adventure.
Fire Charger: Fire Blast deals damage from all elemental damage types.
Golden Shaman: Heals target with lowest HP by X(1.4-4.3%) of output per second. Increases targets DRA by 10%, up to 5 stacks.
Bun Sister: X% chance for punishment to deal two hits instead of one. Each hit does 70% of original damage.
Iron Soldier: X% chance of granting party members the benefits of: X% HRA, X% DRA, X%.
Drunk Reader: X% chance of reviving when killed with 50% of max HP. Costs 25k gold per cast. Deals 10,000% elemental damage as output to all enemies. This effect has lowest priority among revive abilities.
Soul Thief: X% chance of entering Relaxed State when entering battle, negative effects released will not be effected by targets ERR. In addition when Soul Thief enters battle all enemies will have their ERR reduced by 30%.
Fire Assassin: Has X% change to gain 3 layers of Damage Neutralization when entering Fire God State. ( 36 – 50 )
Night Blade: See attachment
Tough Woman: Each enemy killed by shadowless increases Tough Woman’s agility by X (11.2%) up to 10 stacks and can not be dispelled. Reduces DRA, RES, and all resists by 10% for all enemy units with agility lower than Tough Woman at the start of battle.
Chubby Lady: Rotation now generates direct heals (can trigger heal absorption shield.)
Red Horn: Increases damage rate from Brutality by 300-899. Rain of Blades reduces targets hit adjustment by 10% for 5 seconds and can not be resisted. Also increases Red Horns HRA by 30%.
Current Build (screen shots)
Auto Tactics: Tactician, Bun Sister, Night Blade, Missionary, Killer