Oh no, it’s Kholai again. What’s he going to yammer on about this time?

Well boys and girls, I’ve been spending time in the Graveyard of the Dead lately, and having watched members of my party get themselves killed, here’s a few survival tips to help others avoid their fate.

General – The tip for everyone.

Watch out for the monsters.

Sounds simple right? But I’m serious. Too many people seem to forget that Dungeon monsters deal more damage than a lot of Red monsters, have frequent buddy calling sessions, and larger than usual aggro ranges. Ignore this, you’ll get swarmed and killed.

In the Marlone Hideout, enemies come pretty thick and fast, you will not be able to travel without grabbing aggro. Bear this in mind, bite the bullet and know when you’ll have to fight. It’s better to fight one on one than take an army.

In the Graveyard of the Dead, things are a bit easier. Monsters stick to the centre of the rooms for the most part, allowing you to hug the wall and avoid them. If you need to kill a particular type of monster, try to pick off lone enemies.

Above all, be aware of where every monster is. You can easily get yourself killed with one mistake. Move carefully, slowly, and manually. The mouse control is a lot more extreme than the keyboard, and extreme is bad.

Unless you have designs on scrolling out of danger back to town, the thing to do if you attract a massive train is to move to a place a little away from your party and accept death with dignity. This way, the cleric can revive you safely and you can move away from the enemy without bringing about a TPK. If you’re the only cleric…. Well, sucks to be you.

If someone else aggros an army of enemies that you and your party can’t handle (generally more than four, depending on your party’s construction), do everyone in your party a favour, and do not heal them, attack the mob, or snare aggro. This sounds harsh, but it’s better for the team if that one person bites the bullet than for you and your team to be wiped out by getting in over your heads.

Now for more specific tips:

Fighters

Once more, be very, very aware of where every single monster in the area is. And stick close to your teammates. Ideally you’ll be in a party with a damage dealer, so don’t bother with that little buff that increases your attack at the cost of defence. Equally, if you’re the one going to be tanking the boss this time round, there are two types of scrolls that are mandatory for you; Vitality and Shield.

Things to remember:
If you wander away from the cleric, they aren’t going to heal you.
If you aggro an army of monsters that the cleric can’t possibly heal you from, nobody is going to help you.
If you can’t keep aggro off a cleric, that cleric isn’t going to be able to heal you, dungeon monsters deal too much damage to ignore.
If you can’t keep aggro off the damage dealers, those damage dealers are going to run away, leaving you on your own, and probably bringing back a train of even more monsters. They will die, you won’t have anymore damage backing you up. The cleric will hate you all for giving them more work. If they survive.

Mages and Archers

For the most part, mages seem to be the class most keenly aware of their own mortality, so watching out for monsters should be second nature for both classes. Watching out for monsters whilst retreating is important, and, when retreating, most of the time it’s worth actually retreating towards the monster that aggro’d you.
Reason? That monster is often one that broke through the front line. If you retreat away from the fighter and cleric, then they won’t be able to take aggro or heal you. If you retreat towards the rest of your party, then you’ll not attract anymore monsters either, and hopefully the cleric/fighter can rescue you before you die.

For archers in particular, when you’re going to lure, be extra careful about your surroundings. If you accidentally aggro a monster next to you as you hit another monster, you’re going to trigger the death-train I’ve mentioned so much. Also remember Nature’s Protection is not to be used to pawn monsters off on a mage. I don’t care what you think, you’re more survivable than they are. It’s sad, but you’re the most likely to die if you don’t pay attention to what you’re doing.

Things to remember:
The cleric is your best friend. Hug them close so long as they aren’t being hugged by monsters.
You need to be careful about aggroing even one monster. Dungeon variety creatures can kill you before the cleric can heal you.
If you find yourself helping a tanking-cleric and especially they’re not using the cleric-tanking method, which is massively SP intensive, hold back on your high level spells a little; Dungeon monsters have a much lower target-threshhold, so don’t be surprised if you end up taking aggro, even with someone using the tanking method. Worst case, don’t panic, just blast them apart as quick as possible, and let the cleric heal you.
Worst case scenario and somebody gets that mile-long train of monsters, wall-hug like the wind! It’s more helpful for you to stay alive and lessen the strain of reviving on the cleric, and you won’t lose 10 million XP either.
Nature’s protection only works if somebody else interferes with the monster first. Wait for a cleric or fighter to act before you use it. Worst case, don’t use it, and actually take on that monster and let the cleric heal you, it may sound strange, but it’s easier to keep one extra squishy alive than it is to juggle healing an entire party that’s being overrun.

Clerics

Sorry guys, but you’re going to be holding everything together. If you don’t do your job right, you’re going to ruin things more than anyone else. When not travelling, taking aggro, stepping up to attack or guarding a lure, you should be mostly immobile. Movement is good only when it’s moving further away from monsters that would be aggroing you.
You will have to keep your cool, you will have to avoid death at all costs (two cleric teams are, incidentally, mandatory) whilst helping everyone else do the same.
Whilst you’re arguably the most survivable, you can’t take on three monsters, you can’t replace a good tank against a large mob, and you have to be ready to heal any character in your party at a moment’s notice. A cleric being the one who attracts the death train is unforgivable, you should have a clear knowledge of the entire battlefield and be ready and willing to take out adjacent spawns as needed.

Things to remember:

Invincible is your best friend. Using it will give you precious seconds to revive someone, stop the tank from being annihilated, or otherwise save the day.
If you die, and you were the only cleric left standing, don’t return to the entrance right away. Give your buddies a minute or so to back away and let the monsters calm down, or they’ll chew them up next.
It’s usually better to keep someone alive than it is to revive someone who’s already dead, keep your attentions on keeping the damage dealers up, on keeping yourself alive whilst you surreptitiously retreat away from aggro ready to revive everyone….
Even dead clerics recover cooldown, it’s usually better to rev a cleric who can then rev someone else than to revive a non-cleric.
If you need to, don’t be afraid to take some aggro off a tank. You can survive one Dungeon monster for a little while, and it will stop the tank being gunned down in under a second.

Boss handling

Finally, having fought your way through, you have to take on a boss. Now, Marlone, I believe, stuns, the Zombie King comes with lackeys. Surprisingly, unless you’re a cleric tanking the boss, lackeys are more dangerous than stun is. So, how to deal with them?

Marlone: Since Marlone is on his lonesome a lot of the time, things are fairly simple, but his AoE attack can cause problems. Clerics settle down behind him and attack, healing every time the tank needs it. Fighters simply kick and hold aggro. Damage dealers unleash hell.

Zombie King: The largest problem with the zombie king is actually the three dungeon zombies he comes with. Cast invincible on the tank for when the zombie mob reaches them, and have the damage-dealers/clerics/spare fighter pick off the zombie lackeys first. Even the tank should be killing the lackeys before the king, simply because they have a fraction of his HP, yet still deal around three hundred damage all together.
Only once the lackeys are dead or only one is left can clerics safely divide their attention from mass-healing the tank and devote their time to helping deal the damage. But without his bodyguards, the king is a simple affair.

Finally done. Thanks for your patience.

Credits go to Kholai.