Death Must Die is an brutally challenging roguelite game that tests players‘ skill, strategic planning, and a bit of luck. With punishing difficulty spikes, deadly enemies and bosses around every corner, and the ever-present risk of permadeath, it takes mastery to overcome all the obstacles and taste victory.
However, many promising runs end prematurely due to easily avoidable mistakes. By being aware of these pitfalls and tweaking your approach, you can significantly boost your chances of success. In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll highlight the 9 most common mistakes and provide actionable tips to help you triumph over Death Must Die.
1. Squandering Your Hard-Earned Gold
Gold is a precious resource in Death Must Die, useful for buying weapons, gear and blessings to strengthen your character build. However, prices scale up with each successive run, while gold gains remain static from destroying vases and item drops. This leads many players to blow all their gold on incremental upgrades, leaving little for future runs.
The Fix: Be judicious in how you invest gold by saving up for high-impact purchases instead of frittering it away on minor boosts. For instance, prioritize getting the +100% damage Stone of Power over a basic +5% damage weapon. Destroy every breakable object to maximize gold gains and use character abilities to find hidden stashes. With smart spending, your gold will go much further.
2. Buying Random Items Without Synergy
It‘s tempting to grab exciting new weapons and gear when you have spare gold. However, without considering how they fit into your broader build, these purchases can be useless or even detrimental. For example, boosting weapon damage won‘t help much if you lack supporting buffs and protections.
The Fix: Resist impulse shopping in favor of intentional purchases that complement your playstyle and chosen gods‘ blessings. Study all item stats instead of just looking at the green numbers indicating upgrades. An item with slightly lower damage but useful bonuses like Dodge Chance or Critical Hit may prove far more valuable long-term.
3. Neglecting Key Perks and Achievements
Unlocking permanent character upgrades and achievements provides major boosts to damage, health, resources and more that carry over between runs. However, many players focus exclusively on their current run instead of working towards these meta-progression goals. This severely hinders their overall power.
The Fix: Make completing achievements and acquiring beneficial perks part of your long-term strategy. For instance, repeatedly using a specific weapon type unlocks specializations that add percentage bonuses, while collecting multiple gods‘ blessings enables powerful hybrid abilities. This extra power often spells the difference between success and tragic failure.
4. Not Utilizing the Mini Map Effectively
The mini map view accessible by pressing M reveals important locations like enemy clusters, shrines and characters offering services. However, in the heat of battle, it‘s easy to forget checking for these icons that can significantly impact a run. Missing a Hermes shrine early on makes you permanently slower, while skipping weapon upgrades leaves you underpowered.
The Fix: Glance at the mini map between combat encounters whenever possible. Learn to recognize icon types – yellow circles indicate interactive spots offering potential power-ups or purchases. Make visiting these high priority, even if it means taking small detours. A single upgraded weapon found this way can demolish later enemies with ease.
5. Choosing Gear Without Synergy
Similar to wasting gold on ineffective items, selecting gear purely based on main stat improvements often results in a fragmented build. What‘s worse, replacing or removing existing pieces resets any invested gold and gems, destroying previous progress. This causes many players to weaken themselves inadvertently over time.
The Fix: Treat each gear piece as part of your broader loadout instead of solely comparing slot replacements. Note how item sets and bonuses boost your damage and sustain in combination with your other equipment and active character perks. Swapping out downgrades or sidegrades with no clear benefit only denies you resources better spent improving your current set.
6. Picking Suboptimal Gods for Blessings
The many Greek gods you encounter each provide unique combat buffs via Boons that grow in power over time. Unfortunately, without planning out good combinations suited to your playstyle, receiving redundant or useless blessings can occur. This leaves you without the specialized boosts you need to stand toe-to-toe with lethal foes.
The Fix: Research gods like Zeus, Artemis and Ares with bonuses that complement your chosen weapons and character abilities. Learn which hybrid Boons enable devastating weapon techniques or defensive auras to carry you through sticky situations. Maximize Boon upgrades from your specialized patron deities through clever rerolls instead of thinly spreading across too many.
7. Misunderstanding the Luck Stat
Luck is an important stat that many players think simply provides better item drops. In actuality, it exclusively affects chance-based damage and effects like Critical Hit. So while it won‘t make rare Boons appear more often, it will make your criticals hit harder.
The Fix: Recognize Luck‘s true benefit instead of expecting it to boost item rarity. When planning out builds, raise it significantly to inflict devastating critical hit chains that can shred even minibosses. Then for sustainability, rely on complementary gods like Eir and Hestia who heal based on damage done.
8. Not Rerolling the Gods‘ Blessings
After receiving an initial Boon blessing at a god‘s altar, you‘re occasionally offered the choice to reroll for alternatives from other deities at the cost of resources. Declining to prevent loss of health or riches is common, but doing so can lock you into lackluster bonuses not ideal for certain weapon loadouts. This severely hampers your late-game battle prowess in a mode as unforgiving as Death Must Die.
The Fix: Come prepared with Alteration Dice allowing chances to reroll gods without additional costs. Tactically choose which bonuses to pursue over keeping mediocre ones based on your weapon‘s innate properties and character strengths. Having the flexibility to pivot when presented with game-winning Boon options beats never taking the risk.
9. Attempting Steep Difficulty Gaps Prematurely
Eagerness to challenge oneself is admirable. However, attempting high difficulties without honing your skills and gear across more reasonable ones frequently ends in frustration. The gaps in enemy damage, health bars and quantity between certain modes feel outright unfair until you acquire enough meta-progression. Premature entries into hardcore Death Runs often end fast!
The Fix: Swallow your pride and grind through the lower New Game+ and difficulty modes first while accumulating knowledge and upgrades. Resist rushing into harder challenges landing far outside your capabilities. Build up in incremental steps instead of giant leaps to stand the best chance of overcoming daunting odds eventually.
By avoiding these 9 easily-made mistakes that sabotage promising runs, your next attempt at Death‘s castle may be filled with glorious victory! As your proficiency and unlocks grow with sound strategy applied, the wicked shall someday fall. Just stay determined, focused and ever vigilant against the great knave that has killed so many heroes and heroines before you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I prioritize offensive or defensive gear bonuses?
Strive for balance. Pure glass cannon builds leave you too fragile while pure tanking gradually loses steam. Instead, accumulate proportional damage and sustain bonuses through both weapon properties and supportive god boons. Stack both offensive and defensive synergies in equal measure.
Is completing rooms quickly always the optimal strategy?
No. While speed gives more time for side activities, methodical play by luring and separating enemies often proves safer overall. Don‘t rush – draw out lone foes into ambushes whenever feasible. This form of tactical crowd control greatly reduces the odds of being overwhelmed.
Should I spend all meta resources improving my current gear or save up?
Ideally do both by allocating partial amounts after each run for incremental gains while reserving the rest for planned milestone purchases. Achieve a healthy flow of small upgrades to already decent gear while stockpiling for major acquisitions in parallel. Balance present needs with long-term planning.
What‘s more valuable – more gold or more blessings?
Blessings. Though gold fuels purchases, the exponential power curve of high-tier Boons combined with complementary hybrid bonuses outclasses most gear. Favor sacrificing gold via rerolls and enhancement to keep regularly upgrading key gods‘ Blessings. These stack multiplicatively for insane bonuses.
When should I attempt higher difficulties and New Game+ modes?
Only after accruing sufficient meta-resources and thorough practice to avoid hitting walls. The stat checked trails make overconfidence costly. Stick to smoothing out performance on standard difficulties first. The unpredictable New Game+ variants especially require respeccing preparation to not catch you off guard. Implement gear and ability changes addressing amplified threats that arise at higher phases of play before advancing.