Strategies

Strategies
Add any and all strategies for Delver here! They can range from how to stay alive during the escape, defeating tough enemies, getting to the orb, and more. For adding new strategies, use Heading 3. Other tips can be added at the bottom of the page. Add plenty of links to wiki pages so new players can learn more if wanted!

The game is very easy. Learn distancing, timing, aiming and evading and you can easily win with any item/skill combo. Mobile Version,12/02/2019 By The_Legend
I beat the game on my first run with a heavily armored, high HP build, running back to the entrance like my hair was on fire as high-level monsters kept spawning around me, overwhelming me. It seemed impossible to fight back and I only survived by the skin of my teeth.

Then I thought I'd make my next run different. I spent all my gold on 370 arrows and built around equal amounts of speed, agility and health. I'm great at Pixel Dungeon and FPS games in general, and it was easy for me to avoid getting hit with a high speed/agility combo. I wore quite poor quality leather armor on the way down and back to maximize my speed, and I hardly had to use healing items at all. On the way back I equipped a 10AC jewelled plate mail to be on the safe side ending up with still decent speed and a mere 21 AC (I had 35 AC on my first run). But I hardly ever got hit. I was mostly using a fine long bow and occasionally a sword if I could hit an enemy safely. It was really a super easy ride and I could play very aggressively. Once when going up a level, 2 skeleton mages were standing in my face, attacking me immediately. Due to my great strafing and aiming skills, they couldn't even hit me and they were dead in a couple of seconds. I suggest you change your mindset about the way back to the surface and start feeling like a badass. I ended up with the following stats after killing everyone on the way back but without farming for gold or XP:

Attack: 8

Speed: 8

Health: 12

Magic: 4

Agility: 8

Defense: 4

...and an inventory containing 4 iron skin and 2 full restoration potions, 2 haste scrolls, fully charged wands and other goodies that I didn't have to touch, as well as 1200 gold. If I were to use wands, my build would have been the same, but with 8 points in Magic and 4 points in Attack. I'd pick a weapon with a long reach to conserve my wand charges, but I could cause even more destruction than with an archery build with an overabundance of wands in the game. Again, strafing and distancing are keys to an easy win and absolute domination. I'm using the phone version and if I can pull it off with these clunky controls, you can totally dominate the game with keyboard and mouse controls.

So my practical tips are:

1) Don't listen to people claiming only the Health stat is worth it. All of them are more than viable. Experiment with them After you've mastered distancing, timing, aiming and evading projectiles so you can really appreciate their potential.

2) Get good. Really, if you have great skills in distancing, timing, aiming and evading, you can use almost ANY gear and skill combo to win this game, supposing your weapon reach is sufficient and you don't slow yourself down too much with armor. And you'll find the game easy.

3) If you don't have enough gold to buy at least 300 arrows, don't bother with an archer build yet and go melee while farming gold. You can manage with 250 arrows, but I like to overstay a bit and have more fun ;)

4) Avoid using daggers and short swords and take advantage of your weapons' long reach and your speed. Learn to time your strike and distance its animation's end point at your enemies' predicted location at the end. With practice you'll get great at it and won't need to use healing items. To have a better idea of where your weapon is going to hit, hit the ground with it at various angles so you know its maximum reach.

5) Lead your shots and strafe while aiming to avoid even surprise shots from behind. Practice makes perfect!

6) collect all your missed arrows.

7) Feel free to stay as long as you're comfortable in the dungeon before leaving, because with your maxed out gear it's easy to farm gold for the next run/build idea.

8) Only keep your storm wands because they pierce enemies in a line. You can and should charge your wands too for increased damage!

9) Especially if you go ranged, develop both your speed and agility. Your speed determines your movement speed, and your agility determines how much of your speed you can utilize while charging your weapon. Essential for strafing while power hitting and being a badass! (not a high HP scared rabbit scurrying up to the entrance).

10) Depending on your aiming and dodging abilities, start out by putting 2-5 points into health for both survivability and to take better advantage of healing items (not to waste them), then develop your character as you see fit.

11) If you're struggling to survive on the way back with a high HP build, keep your health at near maximum and always have a food item actively regenerating your health, while you're constantly moving towards the entrance.

12) When going up a level, you usually won't see any enemies immediately. Use this time to have a quick look at your map once, visualize it and memorize a pattern of, for example, Left-Right-Left that'll lead you to the way up. Then repeat it as a mantra while avoiding all enemies if possible (But on your next runs don't try to grab the orb and instead practice distancing, timing, aiming and evading only. You'll soon realize that the game is too easy.)

13) Even if a blue skull starts attacking you on the way back and you get stuck, you can usually break free easily by turning away from it and distancing yourself from it. It's preferable to fighting it, unless you are still stuck after 3 seconds. All monsters should be avoided with a full HP/AC build.

14) Keep notes of which potion does what in your inventory. Only use a potion if your health is a bit low already, but not less than 11HP, or that you have a food item to use to compensate for any poison potion you might drink. Keep your potions and inventory organized, always know which color does what and you can confidently and quickly use them in a tight spot this way.

15) The monsters' health and the quality of their loot seems to scale with your character level, for a while at least than it reaches a plateau. This scaling led me to on my first run avoid many monsters on the way down and only fight on the way up when it was necessary, maximizing the effectiveness of my weapons (the damage of which doesn't scale like the HP of monsters do). But as an archer I realized that there is a limit to how far they scale and that I can catch up to them by gaining enough levels, and possibly gain an advantage over them too. Eventually a jewelled sword took 2 swings to kill a druid for me, but it didn't scale beyond that. So if you can get your hands on a really powerful weapon in the camp, a good strategy would be to avoid most monsters on the way down and you'll have an easy way killing the ones you do kill.

16) This is how traps work (on mobile, but probably on PC too). They have a half a second activation time that allows you to quickly step on their edge and back, activating them without getting hurt/teleported away. WHILE activated, they turn green and they will have NO EFFECT on you while they are green. Use this time to walk over them, don't waste inventory items/space on keeping them activated, unless you're afraid to step on them while retreating.

17) Know how much damage you can expect from the enemy you're facing and make sure you can't be killed with a single hit. Always have a food item or potion ready that can save you.

18) Be economical with your healing items. For example, if you've just used a regeneration item that would waste some of its healing potential when it fully heals you, keep attacking monsters and progress more aggressively as you can now get hit or poisoned more often. Never be reckless and always try to avoid getting hit though.

19) If there's a shortage of good healing items in your inventory and you're about to pick up the orb and go back up, you can have a run on the upper levels, collecting any dropped healing items and putting them near the way leading up. After you've picked up the orb, you won't be able to do this easily!

20) The Lich is easy to kill if your health is above 40, or if you have a good ranged weapon and use a magic resist potion. It shoots unavoidable lightning bolts so you need to rely on high damage per second and bring it down quickly with charged ranged or melee attacks. In melee use an iron skin potion though, and stay in its face!

An Easy Adventure. By Dirahmer
I have found in my experience from playing delver, the best way to survive, get to the orb and getting out is to level nothing but health. It gets boring, repetitive, and most people may not like it. But having 60+HP makes this game a lot easier when trying to escape. I would also say to not fight at all on the way out unless you are trapped. Fighting makes opportunities for you to get hit and taking dmg is never a good thing. Make sure to have alot of food in your inventory, and do not rely on potions to much except magic resist and numbness. Those 2 combined literally give you god mode.

Defeating the Liche.
Drink an iron skin  get as close as possible so he starts useing melee and smack him with your sword.

Defeating the Lich! By TheNite
From my experiences, it is best to use ranged weapons like wands or bows. If you have any arcane potions, use them as well! I clear out all of the visible enemies in the room from the opposite side with my bow, slowly getting closer to lure them toward me. Once they are dealt with, chug down an arcane potion and let loose with your best wands on the lich ! Try to have nearby cover to hide behind! In a few shots, he should be dead, allowing you to take your prize !

Getting back to the surface
An awesome strategy I have thought up (but have not yet implemented) is for when you are having trouble getting back to the surface after you have the orb. My theory is that when you grab the orb, stay in that room and fight the endless waves of skeletons until you can eventually level your self up to max stats.

Planning Everything By Oni Sorasousha
One of the basic battle tips given early on is to always have an escape route. You might easily think that this just means to have an escape route for your current encounter, but planning an escape route for your trip out of the dungeon from the moment you set foot in, is a great way to ensure your success. Generally you'll get more food and healing potions than you really need to use, and you can pretty safely use wands to fight for most of your adventure. Only level up your health for surviveability, other stats may be nice, but health matters the most. Don't just go down a floor when you find the ladder, thoroughly explore every floor you come across, and make sure to drop food along the path leading out. Handling the Lich is easy when you have plenty of HP, just use either your best bow, or a lightning wand, and you'll be able to take him without getting hit most of the time: if you do get hit, try to keep some healing on hand, but don't go overboard. The most important thing is leaving a trail of healing goodies/buffs the whole way out of the dungeon. Remember, explore everything this gives you valuable experience to add to your HP pool, and also helps you get the best gear possible. When you're escaping, run, and eat every time you find another of the 'bread crumbs' you left behind on your way down, and you should have little to no trouble. The only monster that MUST be killed every time you see it when escaping are the floating skulls, as they will stop you from running! Also! I find checking my map while running a LOT easier if you use the options to keybind map to the tab key, rather than M. (This only works on PC to my knowledge!)

Other Tips

 * Skulls can be thrown to activate traps, or deal a little damage!
 * Potions that make you feel arcane make you immune to magic attacks for a short amount of time!
 * If you want to control lots of enemies at once (meaning that you won't get swarmed) throw a potion (mostly the bad one) and then fire your bow or wand at it and it'll explode.