Dungeon Stalkers is a PvEvP Extraction game where you enter a dungeon, loot, and try to escape alive.

This guide is meant as an introduction to the game and explains a few things the tutorial doesn't cover. I'm fairly new to writing guides, so please leave feedback!

This guide will be mostly focused on the PvE aspect of the game as that is what I've been playing for the most part. As such, most of the guide won't be for PvP builds or strategies. That said, some mechanics are shared between PvE and PvP so it may be helpful!

In Dungeon Stalkers, Stalkers (players) will enter a dungeon, loot, then try to extract with the loot. Players will choose one of 9 different characters (stalkers) to enter the dungeon as, and can equip their character with different equipment to improve their stats or potentially change their abilities with legendary gear. The dungeon is procedurally generated with pre-made map sections that are semi-randomly placed into a large square map.
If you manage to extract alive, you get to keep your loot, and can carry it over to future matches, store it in your stash, or sell it on the player market or to NPC merchants.

There are four different ways to play:

• Adventure (PvE Casual): Purely PvE without any PvP. If you die you keep your equipped gear, your unused hotbar items, and your 1-4 safe item slots.
  
• Quick Match (PvEvP Casual): If you die you keep your equipped gear, your unused hotbar items, and your 1-4 safe item slots.
  
• Ranked (3 players): If you die you lose everything except in your 1-4 safe item slots
  
• Competitive (Solo): If you die you lose everything except your 1-4 safe item slots

Please note that there are differences between the more casual modes and ranked modes (how difficult mobs are, how difficult it is to extract, etc) besides the death punishment.

1. Rush the "Construction" for "Trade" so you can trade with other players on the player market
The player market sells a ton of different gear, and this reduces the RNG of the game as you can now pick and choose which gear to get. It's probably the most important thing to getting more powerful with less RNG (assuming good gear is being sold). You can also buy materials to upgrade your base with, or to craft legendary weapons.
You start with a lot of gold with the beginner quests (10-20k), and can get okay-ish gear for <500 gold per item. Make sure to use filters if you want to go for specific builds (and to see what the available items are)

2. Spend gold wisely
It takes a bit to get gold. About 15 minutes to get 500-1000 gold if you go for a gold run so don't spend it carelessly. If you're playing casually, it's good to save for good gear since you won't lose it between rounds.

3. When initially upgrading, get a weapon
The best bang for your buck is a new weapon as you can get a cheap blue weapon (<200 gold) and instantly increase damage by up to 10 points (enormous gains considering that the starting dagger, bow, and staff does 20 dmg)

4. Experiment while you're new
Before committing to getting top tier gear, make sure you like the character you choose! Try out all 6 of the immediately available characters to see if it matches your play style. Note that the free gear is pretty basic, so spending ~1k on decent gear from the player shop is pretty helpful as a quick start.

5. Healing is hard, play cautiously (or play the cleric or vampire who self-heals for free)
Normal (non-elite) adventure enemies (not ranked) do 5-30 dmg per hit. A healing potion heals 30 or 50 hp and costs 150 gold. Don't get hit unless you want to spend a ton of money. Speaking of not getting hit...

6. If you're ranged, kiting is key
Enemies are slow, and slowly backing away and whittling them away is incredibly effective. Just make sure you have a clear escape route (no closed doors and no enemies flanking you)

7. If you're melee, circle strafing is key
Once you get the hang of things, you can circle around enemies to "dodge" most of their attacks. Some attacks have big hit boxes (e.g. elite gargoyle kick), so you either have to back off or shield it. This game is all about positioning, once you get good you can direct enemies into hitting each other or walking into traps, and can reliably dodge enemies without any shields.

8. The map is your friend
Press "M" to view the map, and find where to extract. It also shows off where elite enemies are (if you want to fight for extra loot, or avoid if you're low)

9. In Adventure (PvE) Mode, static extraction places (Escape tombstones) reload every 5 minutes (when the witch's curse comes), unless their timer runs out
So if you're low on HP, you can camp at one and wait for it to respawn

10. Bandages are great for cheap healing, but don't bandage while poisoned
Any damage will interrupt the heal and cause you to lose the item without getting healed. Poison damage will interrupt

So how does one escape the dungeon after getting all the loot?

There are 2 ways of doing so:

• Blue Escape Portals - These spawn roughly every 5 minutes, randomly within the dungeon. Once used by a player/party, then it is permanently used up.
  
• Escape Tombstones - These are locations on the map that will let you escape in Adventure mode. If you use them, then they will grey out until the next "witch's curse" (random event every 5 minutes) where it will re-enable

To use an escape portal/escape tombstone, simply walk up to one and press F to activate it. Waiting 10 seconds without being interrupted will let you escape, and will bring along anyone in your party that's within the blue circle

What would a dungeon be without loot? Thankfully Dungeon Stalkers gives more than enough loot for you to use every slot of your inventory in a couple rooms, so don't feel compelled to pick up every little thing. (That said, I totally embrace my loot goblin and take everything!)

In Dungeon stalkers, you have several types of loot:

• Equipment: Will improve your character
  
• Treasure: Can be sold for gold
  
• Materials: Can be used to upgrade your hideout or craft gear
  
• Consumables: Used to heal, create

There are several tiers of loot based on their color. Their rarities from lowest to greatest are:

• Common (grey)
  
• Uncommon (blue)
  
• Rare (purple)
  
• Legendary (red)

In the dungeon, there are several sources of loot:

• Chests
  
• Corpses of enemies
  
• Purple glowing corpses: Provides Adventurer Tokens
  
• Green totems: Provides Adventurer Tokens, and creates a large circle alerting other players that it was activated. In PvE this is a non-issue, but in PvP this could be risky
  
• Loot lying around on shelves/on the ground
  
• Breakable objects (Wooden crates, barrels, etc): Contain random consumables and materials such as wooden fragments
  
• Statues: Provide buffs once interacted with

Corpses of enemies and open chests will have a color highlighting their highest rarity contents. This means that if you see a purple highlight on a body or open chest, it contains at least one item of purple loot. In Adventuring elite enemies sometimes have purple loot, and very rarely do normal enemies drop rare loot.

There are 3 currencies available:

• Gold: Used to buy things from the shop and from other players, and as a fee for upgrading your shelter
  
• Adventurer Tokens: Used to buy blueprints for crafting, some rare materials, and to unlock new Stalkers to play as
  
• Wishstones: Premium currency for emotes, cosmetics, and the battle pass

In the dungeon, there are statues you can interact with. These statues have a variety of effects, based on their color. The default duration is 2 minutes, but you can equip runes to double the duration.

• Red: Gives you a random attack buff
  
• White: Gives you a shield
  
• Cyan/Blue: Refills HP and MP to max. Notably this does not repair your armor.

You can optionally fight elite enemies in the dungeon for greater rewards such as rarer loot and more adventurer tokens.

There are three elite enemies at the time of writing

• Kinu: A lightning-staff wielding mage
  
• Gargoyle: A fireball-slinging winged creature
  
• Cursed Knight: A spear-wielding knight

For combating each one, there are different strategies you can use:

• Kinu: Circle strafing is highly effective with melee
  
• Gargoyle: Circle strafing will maximize damage, but its kicks will damage you. You can go in and attack after it commits to a fireball, then back off in order to maintain distance from any kicks. Alternatively, you can cheese at a doorway where its kicks can't hit you as easily
  
• Cursed Knight: TBD, this one has wide swinging attacks and seems more tricky. Kiting seems to be the key