As previously stated, we were preparing a post about best practices and tips for Droidhen’s Lair Defense. Some of the ideas described here may sound obvious, others may not. We leave it as an open discussion so if you have any other thoughts on the matter, share your experience in the comments.
General gameplay tips
Know the enemy units. There is an Almanac button accessible from the main screen where you will find details regarding all the enemy units.
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There are 3 enemies that have a resistance to one of your dragons. This doesn’t mean that they are immune to that particular dragon, but the damage received is greatly reduced. Also, Firerain and Ice up will deal the same damage and effect, although their names imply fire and ice.
- the hunter has poison resistance
- the warrior has ice resistance
- the mage has fire resistance
- The thief has the hide ability. What actually happens is that after the first hit he cloaks himself and your dragons will not detect him for quite some time. A bad strategy for the thief is to concentrate all your powerful dragons in the front line. By cloaking, the thieves will easily go through. A good strategy is to place a cheap dragon up in front that will engage the thief’s cloak as soon as he enters the screen and more powerful dragons down the road that will catch him as soon as the cloak fades away.
- The priest will heal himself constantly. This is not quite as bad as it sounds but it will require a heavier concentration of dragon attacks to put him down.
- The druid has 2 life bars. The first one acts like a buffer. The second one will not decrease until the first is depleted. The important thing to know here is that if he doesn’t receive any kind of damage for a few seconds, the first (buffer) life bar will be completely restored. A good strategy is to keep the entire path covered with dragons so that the druids will be under constant attacks.
At the beginning of a level, when you lay out the first dragons it is important to know the first enemy wave. Check what kind of enemies are expected before placing any dragons (the button on the far right edge of the screen). It would be quite sad if you fill the map with fire dragons and end up with 12 mages marching in. Later on, when you have enough food you will get the rest of the dragons, but first you need to survive the first waves.
Mana is a critical resource so it would be a good idea to place dragons on mana pools as soon as possible.
Note that dragons cannot be placed on adjacent spots (north, east, south or west).
Do not worry about mana when calling the next enemy wave early. Mana will be added instantly based on the time skipped. The timer for the dropped eggs follows the same principle so no worries there either.
Starting from level 3, all dragons have new capabilities:
- Fire dragons will affect all the enemies in their radius, instead of focusing on a single unit.
- Ice dragons will be able to freeze enemies. This is one of our favorites because it keeps the units still and buys valuable time.
- Poison dragons will slow down units.
Skill tips
Let’s take a look over the most important skills available. We will not cover all of them because they are described clearly right in the game, just the ones we found to be very important.
Ice bullet adds another bullet to the ice dragon’s existing 2. This is extremely important because ice dragons need time to recharge but can only store up to 3 bullets. This skill only has one level so get it ASAP.
Bounty hunting will provide you with more food for each enemy killed. Which is very important because it allows you to place more dragons and upgrade existing ones faster.
Extra eggs has only 3 levels and will increase you egg count to 6. Because you get coins after a level depending on how many eggs you still have (40 coins per egg), this will turn out to be a nice investment. Upgrade this skill to the maximum.
Egg return is another great feature to have. After dropping an egg, the egg will return to it’s nest after a certain period of time. So if you manage to save your eggs after a heavy enemy wave, you can still get away with it if you keep them on the screen long enough. Note that if another enemy picks up the egg but drops it again, the countdown is not reset.
Mana pool is a good choice to upgrade because it allows you to stockpile the mana and have it ready for more difficult enemy waves.
So this was our take on what to focus on within the game. If you have any other tips we will be glad to read them.