Death Must Die: Beginner Guide

Death Must Die
A Beginner's Guide by perrythepig

[ B/R/A refers to Banishes, Rerolls, and Alterations ]

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Before Starting a Round:

1. Gear? What's gear?
- Meta progression that persists between rounds.
- Have a weapon for your new character before starting. Sounds obvious, but just have a weapon equiped.

2. Is the Shop useful?
- Good weapons, good gear, Mythics, and Unique Items can all spawn in the shop.
- Shop resets every run (unless you die very early), so check it between runs.

3. Which character to pick? Are they different?
- 5 characters
- Just play the game in order to unlock them. No achievements.
- Unlock "Signs" by competing achievements (top-left of your hideout)
- (Nov 2023) Most people seem to agree that Skadi's Apprentice Spec is the strongest, but most specs are totally fine.
- (Nov 2023) Kront seems quite weak relative to the others, but he's definitely still playable.

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During a Round:

1. Should I kill monsters or explore?
- Early on (and pretty much the whole game), Exploring is very valuable.
- Shrines can give EXP/Second, permanent damage buffs, Speed, B/R/As, and items.
- There are multiple times during the 20 minutes that a huge swarm of monsters will spawn. You'll have no shortage of monsters to kill

2. I clicked a Shrine, but what just happened???
- Click "Tab" and look at the right of the screen. Newest buff is on the top of that list.
- Attack Crit Chance, Attack Damage, Attack Area are all very low priority.

3. The enemy's health bar changed colors?
- Green is Curse, a mechanic from the god Mort.
- Blue is a barrier. Once the barrier is gone, every Attack from you will stun that monster.

4. Should I use "Q" to "Toggle Auto Attack", or use Left Click? (attack movement penalty)
- Recommend to use Left Click to attack, instead of "toggle attack" to always attack.
- There is an Attack Movement Penalty. When you attack, you move slower.
- You can build "Reduced Attack Move Penalty" on gear, but its very low numerically.
- You can use Justice's "Angelic Wings" to negate the penalty for a duration after dashing

5. I keep getting hit!
- Save your dashes for when you need them.
- Dashes have "i-frames", "Invulnerability Frames". 1/4 Second period where you cannot take damage.
- Avoiding telegraphed attacks will save you tons of HP

6. How much time do I have? (Nov 2023)

4:00 - Slime Arena (clear speed check)
7:00 - Two Gargoyles (Boss)
12:00 - Slime (clear speed check)
14:00 - Necromancer (Boss)
16:00 - Elite Monsters (survivability + dps check)
18:00 - Archers
19:05 - 50,000 Skeletons (dopamine)

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Banish/Reroll/Alterations (B/R/A):

1. What do they do? (note you can only select from 3 gods max. Fates are a bonus, and always available.)
- Quick note: You can use multiple effects within one Offer Window. The window won't disappear after using 1 effect.
- Banish: The Boon will no longer be offered to you for the remainder of the run.
- Reroll: Request 3 fresh Boons from the current god. Note that they can be the same, or even the same Boons but with different quality.
- Alteration: Change which god is offering.

2. Can I get more B/R/As?
- In between runs, you can get more B/R/As from your gear
- During a run, the Fates will periodically offer you + B/R/As
- During a run, some Shrines will offer you B/R/As.

3. Can I game the system?
- Once you select an Attack, you will no longer get offered any Attack Boon from the other gods.
- Once you select a Dash, you will no longer get offered any Dash Boon from the other gods.
- Some Boons have prerequisites.
Example:
1. Serendipity ("#% Luck") will only appear if you have a Luck-based boon already.
2. Mayhem will only appear if you have a source of "Curse" from a Boon already.

4. Which gods should I select? (Nov 2023)
- Once you take a boon from 3 separate gods, you'll only ever see those 3 gods. This doesn't include Fates.
- Currently, Justice is excellent. Cozy life regen, relevant defenses, and helps you stay alive.
- All gods have good boons for beginners. Winter doesn't offer much damage, so I recommend against her.
- If you're a try hard, skip to the end of this Beginner Guide.

4. Should I use Boons for survivability or damage?
- There is a clearspeed check at 4 minutes (slime)
- While you are being swarmed/in an "Arena", those monsters will continue spawning for a duration.
- Because those monsters drop experience, you'd really like to have high clear during those points, instead of just barely surviving.

5. What is "Boon Quality"?
- Boons have quality, from lowest to highest: Novice, Adept, Expert, and Master
- Gods will periodically offer upgrades, changing one of your Novice Boons to Adept
- Upgrade Offers cannot upgrade to Master
- "Legendary Offers" are their own thing altogether.
- Some Boons don't scale particularly well with Quality. Basic Attacks and Dashes tend not to scale well with Quality.

6. How many B/R/As should I aim for on my gear?
- at least 3 of each, to start. Personal preference beyond that.

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Gearing:

1. How many B/R/As should I aim for on my gear?
- at least 3 of each, to start. Personal preference beyond that.

2. Can I use the same gear on all 5 characters, just swapping it around?
- Gear is "bind on equip".
- Helmet/Body/Gloves/Boots are based on a class system.
- "Heavy" can only be worn by Knight and Barbarian, for example. Some belts are Heavy only, too.
- "Light" can be worn by Assassin and Sorceress
- "Medium" can be worn by Warrior

3. What should be on my Gear?
- Master Offer Chance. Note, "Legend Offers can only spawn on Master Offers."
- Movement Speed on Boots
- Life (100 Starting Life is a great baseline)
- Shard Pull Area (cozy, rolls on Gloves)
- At least 3 each for B/R/A
After those 3 things, you can tailor for the characters and builds you enjoy playing.
Note that any "#% Increase" on your gear is multiplicative with the "#% Increases" from Signs, Shrines, and Boons

4. I found a new weapon. Is it an upgrade?
- Check the Base Attack Time. You want this number as low as possible.
- Attack Damage and Attack Crit is very niche, currently. (Nov 2023)
- Any %Increases on gear (damage, spell speed, etc.) are multiplicative with all other increases. This just means that #% Increased Damage on your gear is worthwhile.

5. I just got a Unique! Is it good?
- Remember that uniques cut into your B/R/As and your life total.
- "Unique" means that your account will only ever have one of that item. You'll never own 2 of the same unique at the same time.

6. Does good gear come from the Shop, or from Bosses?
- Good weapons, good gear, Mythics, and Unique Items can all spawn in the shop.
- Shop resets periodically based on time, so check it every once in a while.
- Dracula drops 3 or 4 Mythic Items when you kill him.

7. Are there any stats that some Characters want specifically?
Avoron (Knight)
- Adept Offer Chance, because of "Sign of the Disciple"
Kront (Barbarian)
- Armor, because of "Sign of the Meteor"
Merris (Sorceress)
- +1 Dash Boots, because of "Sign of Timespace"
- +# Projectiles

8. ...and in general, "Life gain on Hit/Kill" helps if you don't want to use Justice as one of your three gods.

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Advanced Game Mechanics

1. In general, the sum of all "#% Increases" on your gear are multiplicative, and Shrines/Signs/Boons are all additive together (and multiplicative overall).
Exceptions:
- Item Pickup Chance
- Increased Experience

2. Is "#% Increased Damage" additive? Or multiplicative? (Nov 2023)
- Base * (Sum of Gear Increases) * (Sum of Boons + Sum of Shrines + Sum of Signs + Sum of Status)
- It seems like all "deal more damage" boon modifiers are "Increased", and thus all additive with each other.
- Winter's "Frozen enemies take more damage" seems to be additive as well
- Winter's "Enemies take more damage per ailment on them" seems to be additive as well

3. What is "Luck", and how does it work?
- Base * (Sum of Gear Increases) * (Sum of Boons + Sum of Shrines + Sum of Signs + Sum of Status)
- Multiplier to your Chance-Based Procs, whether they are from god boons, items, or whatever.
- Luck from Boons is multiplicative with the luck from your Gear.
- If you have 20% chance to chill on hit, and you have 100% luck, you now have 40% chance to chill on hit.
- Luck does not interact with finding gear
- Luck does not interact with Crits.
- Note that Luck (and Spell Speed's Cooldown) often do not have a 1:1 effect on a skill. Justice's Reprisal (Smite) is a good example of this.

4. What is "Spell Speed", and how does it work?
- Base * (Sum of Gear Increases) * (Sum of Boons + Sum of Shrines + Sum of Signs + Sum of Status)
- "Speed or Cooldown of your non-attack skills, item skills, summons, and status."
- This stat lumps together all kinds of spell-related stats, including minion stats.
- Spell Cooldown Speed
- Minion Attack Speed
- Note that Speel Speed's Cooldown (and Luck) often do not have a 1:1 effect on a skill. Summer's Inferno is a good example of this.

5. "Spell Damage" scales Minion Damage as well.

6. Attack Builds have very low support currently (Nov 2023).
- Because of this, #% Attack Crit and #% Attack Damage are very low value, unless you're meming.
- Even #% Attack Area is pretty lackluster.

7. Crits
- It says "deal 300% damage", however I'm fairly sure this means "200% more damage", multiplicative
- There is only additive critical strike chance.
- There is no source of "#% increased crit chance". (Nov 2023)

8. "Darkness"
- Darkness is the endgame of Death Must Die
- it scales difficulty, from 0 to 30 difficulty.
- More Darkness means that you'll find more types of "Shrines" in a round
- More Darkness means you'll find stronger gear, better base types, and cool affixes on gear.

9. Loot Rarity scales up with time in a round. Graves/Chests aren't likely to drop good loot at the beginning of a run.

10. "Stat Weighting"
- The numerical strength of affixes on your gear are relative to one another
- Some affixes "cost" more "stat weight" than other affixes do.
- In terms of Path of Exile, you won't see an item with 6 Tier1 Affixes.
- Example:
1. A Helmet could have 50 Health as the only stat
2. A Helmet could have 45 Health, and also +1 Reroll

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The Current Best Build/Synergy: Mayhem (Nov 2023)

Mayhem gives generic #% Increase Damage per cursed enemy killed.

Strategy:
1. Get Mort
2. Get things that apply the curse: "Soulstealer" and "Ravens"
3. Get Mort's Attack Boon, "Deadly Strike"

In order to minmax the strategy, avoid killing monsters except with your Attack or with the 2 Mort Skills.
- This means that you should avoid using procs like "Chain Lightning" from Leigong, or other god's procs.

This strategy yields a HUGE amount of %Increase Damage, which applies to everything: attacks, spells, and summons.
The Soulstealer Boon also deals %HP damage, so it scales well vs bosses.
Note that "Curse" scales with 3x your %Increase Spell Damage, so it has a positive feedback loop with the Mayhem-Stacking playstyle.
You can achieve this synergy without Mort's Attack, but stacking Mayhem is easier with it.