Welcome to Behemoth Hunting!
In Dauntless, you’re a slayer with a thirst for defeating behemoths. They are out to consume the world and you are here to stop them!
Unfortunately, the game doesn’t offer much in terms of preparing you for what lies ahead. Sure, there’s an intro behemoth where you can get a feel for the buttons, but there’s just so many aspects of this game that the developers don’t tell you about!
That’s exactly why I put together this Dauntless guide.
Me and a bunch of other folks from the Average Gamer community downloaded the game last week. It’d be an understatement to say that we were confused on many levels.
In this post, you’ll find tips, tricks, and explanations to get you started off on the right foot! By the end of the post, you’ll have a good understanding of what to do in Dauntless and be well on your way to becoming a great slayer.
If you’re a seasoned vet, please add to this Dauntless guide by leaving your thoughts in the comments section. I want this to be an evolving handbook for gamers who are looking to join Ramsgate!
Dodge to Avoid Damage
Dauntless throws you right into the thick of things with its first Behemoth. It’s pretty clear from the beginning that you’ll need to take down the beast, but the game doesn’t really tell you much more than that.
The game takes advantage of I-Frames, AKA invulnerability frames, where you get a brief window of safety during and after your dodge. By rolling into an enemy’s attack, you’ll avoid incoming damage and be in a better position to counterattack.
Behemoths have significantly more health than your slayer character, so you’ll want to watch for attack animation queues and time your dodges properly. An elusive player will be able to avoid most of the incoming damage to make the most of their openings for attack!
This Dauntless guide shows you real gameplay of the dodge mechanics and how you can avoid more damage.
You Can Change Your Appearance at Any Time
Everyone loves character customization in an MMORPG. Dauntless gives you a high level of control over your character’s facial features once you’ve defeated the initial monster.
If you’ve played any games from The Sims franchise, or even something from 2k Sports, you’ll be right at home tweaking eyebrows and ear angles. If you’d rather proceed to more battles, you can accept the default look.
Thankfully, you can change your appearance in the main town at the press of a button! Edit all your features from the menu button to create the slayer of your dreams.
Check Your Inbox
Dauntless brings together slayers in a booming city, Ramsgate, where you’ll access your quests and upgrades.
When you first spawn in the city, walk straight ahead to access a small mailbox. It’ll have relevant news about ongoing events, game updates, and other mail.
Squad Up
If any of your friends are online, you can create a “hunting party” to take on Behemoths with friends. While the Behemoth difficulty increases with the size of your party, it gives you a better chance to complete in-game objectives.
For example, if you need to do break the tail of a specific Behemoth, you’ll have more people focusing damage at this part. Alternatively, you can have each party member equip a weapon that compliments your playstyle.
Additionally, many cells and consumables are meant to buff your team. You can designate one person to be the medic – equipping AOE healing consumables and cells that increase their revive speed.
Lastly, games are usually more fun with friends!
Pay Attention to the Element Guide
The majority of the Behemoths you face will have specific elemental attacks. When looking at your next challenge, take a look at the element guide, which informs the best weapon and armor types for the fight.
One of the worst things you can do is equip the exact opposite elements of the recommended weapon and armor. This scenario has happened to me before and my damage and defense were both terrible. Needless to say, I lost that battle pretty quickly.
Dauntless does a nice job of showing you which elemental weapons to use so put this information to good use.
Collect all the Things
As you run around the battlefield in search of your next Behemoth, you’ll notice several items on the ground that have a slight glow to their edges. These are items that you can gather and later use to craft and upgrade back in town.
Once you’ve got a sense of the consumables that you like, try to prioritize getting the related materials before each fight. I really like the grenades so I’m always on the lookout for mushrooms.
At the end of the day, the harvesting mechanic in this game is very straightforward, especially if you know what item you’re looking for. Check out this Dauntless Guide for consumables to see which ingredients you need to gather.
Try Each Weapon
You’ll eventually get a side quest to kill a behemoth with five different weapons so you might as well start practicing ahead of time.
Each weapon is unique and you should find the one that best matches your play style. Many of the weapons even have a list of combos that you can use to chain together devastating attacks. Make sure to look these up in the menu and practice on lesser behemoths to maximize your damage.
When you’ve found the right weapon for you, hit up YouTube for a Dauntless guide that is specific to that piece of equipment. The internet is littered with video clips of the proper way to use each weapon and many of the tutorials are less than 10 minutes.
Understand Damage Types
Dauntless shows the slayer what type of damage is being inflicted by the color of the damage indicators:
- White – basic damage that is dealt directly to the Behemoth’s health pool. If you inflict enough base damage, you’ll take out the Behemoth and win the fight.
- Yellow – part damage which doesn’t affect the Behemoth’s health pool but counts towards breaking a part (like a limb)
- Blue – stagger damage that is dealt to the head or legs of a Behemoth. This damage doesn’t impact the Behemoth’s health pool. When a Behemoth is staggered, you’ll see a blue swirl over there head –> go in for the kill!
- Red – wound damage doesn’t affect the Behemoth’s health pool but applies directly to a wounded part. A wounded part will display blue aether coming out of it. Once the wounded part breaks the wound status ends.
Some weapons are better at dealing specific damage than others. For part damage, go with a slashing weapon (ax, chain blades, etc.). To do solid stagger damage, grab a hammer. For wound damage, the war pike is the way to go.
Grab the right weapon for the job and you’ll have a much easier time on the battlefield.
Pick Up Side Quests
As with most MMORPGs, there are plenty of smaller missions to complete in addition to the main campaign. Talk to the NPCs around Ramsgate for quests that can be completed in addition to the primary storyline.
Generally, you’ll need to defeat specific behemoths or gather certain items to fulfill the contract. Return to the giver of the quests and you’ll be reward with gold, XP, and more!
Check out this Dauntless Guide which has plenty of details on both the main and side quests in the game.
Upgrade Your Equipment
Every slayer will gain access to most of the various weapons and armor in Dauntless. To upgrade your equipment, you’ll need to gather specific materials and head to the relevant NPC.
At Wils Bormen, you can level up your melee weapons, Moyra Heigsketter will boost the stats of your armor, Admiral Zai is for Repeaters and The Scarred Master can improve your Aether Strikers (affectionately nicknamed ‘punchy punches’ by the Average Gamer community).
I found that equipment is pretty easy to get up to level 5, but then the materials required become more rare and difficult to hunt for. The more you level up your gear, the more damage you’ll be able to do in battle, so it’s definitely worth it!
This Dauntless guide does a great job of laying out the available weapons, attachments and cell slots with added detail for each.
You Can Climb!
I didn’t see this tip anywhere in the game yet, but you can climb over edges while searching for the Behemoths. The climbing height isn’t very high, but it can help you go from point A to point B more quickly vs having to run around a mountain.
Semi-related, if you jump off a cliff and land close to the edge of another cliff, you’ll grab onto that cliff! Yay for parkour!
Follow the Nose
In most encounters, you’ll fight the beast down to less than half health and then it will flee. The behemoth will move to a new part of the map and you’ll need to track it down.
Luckily, the game gives you a hint as to where the monster is heading.
Look at where the head of the Behemoth is facing to be tipped off about its exit direction. Head that way, and you’re sure to find the beast for part two of your fight!
Drink the Kool-Aid
In each Behemoth fighting spot, you’ll see a light- blue rift in the ground with some streams floating out of it. If you press your collect button (X on PS4) over one of these, you’ll drink for the pool and recover some health.
The base heals give you back 200 health, but this healing amount can be buffed using cells and potions.
The pool is limited in resources but can be a great option to regen some HP if you’ve run out of potions. Make sure to leave some for your teammates since it’s a communal pool.
Use Potions
You’ll craft plenty of consumables in your slaying days, but none is as important as the healing potion. This red elixir restores some of your health at the press of a button. Best of all, the game gives these to you for free every fight!
You’ll begin each hunt with 5 healing potions in your inventory. These can be the difference between defeating a behemoth and a painful death. Make sure to use them when you’re below half health to ensure you aren’t capped by your max HP.
If you need a Dauntless guide laying out your available consumables, Rock Paper Shotgun has you covered.
Save Loadouts
I really like Dauntless, but the game’s inventory system is not great. You start out with one loadout and you’ll need to change your gear very frequently. The game doesn’t give you an easy way to do this!
Instead, you’ll find yourself swapping armor and weapons every few fights, including changing the equipped cells. This is time-consuming and annoying, but at least you get a second slot relatively early on.
My advice is to level up a set of neutral armor in one slot and then focus on one or two elements that you can swap out in the other. My go-to is fire and ice, but figure out which behemoths you like to fight and upgrade your equipment accordingly.
Collect Hawk’s Tears
As you wander around Ramsgate, you’ll notice some strange silver statues hanging from pillars and walls. If you see one of these shining, press the interact button to collect tears from the hawk. Each hawk tear collected grants 5 XP and you can collect a total of 10 tears per day.
This is basically a free 50 XP everyday if you’re willing to put in a few minutes of work. In the early days of this game, this can help you level up more quickly than if you were just completing quests.
Do yourself a favor and collect some tears!
Check the Core Breaker
For each piece of equipment, you can install at least one core. These cores add buffs to your kits, granting you everything from increased stamina regen to improving stagger damage.
When you complete side quests, you’ll often receive a core, which can be acquired from core breakers scattered around Ramsgate. Make sure to check these locations to claim your reward and make your slayer even stronger!
Talk to the Middleman
After a while, you’ll have a ton of cells (AKA cores) sitting in your inventory. Instead of letting them sit and collect dust, visit the Middleman to buff the cells that best match your kit!
You give him the cell to be improved and a cell of the same rarity, and he will grant a +1 to that initial cell. This takes a good amount of real-time (20+ hours for an uncommon cell) but is definitely worth it. Without this mechanic, you’d have to rely on the luck of the core breaker to get the cells you want.
Additionally, you can salvage the cells that you no longer want for Aetherdust. This currency is used in purchasing daily cell deals from the Middleman.
Dauntless Guide to Get You Started
I know there’s a lot in here, but I promise this information will help you be less confused when you drop into Dauntless. Again, these are beginner tips and are meant for gamers who have never tried the game.
At a base level, the game is fairly straightforward. Kill the thing, collect some stuff, upgrade your items and repeat. Where things get interesting is in your build development, particularly when you find your unique playstyle.
As with any game, you’ll get better with time. Watch some YouTube guides, practice your combos against Lesser Behemoths and you’ll be slaying high-threat monsters in no time!
For any of you more seasoned slayers, please leave your tips and tricks in the comments!
