Because there’s so much going on when you first start this game, you’re likely to miss a few key details the game didn’t tell you watch out for during the tutorial. This guide will break down some important details you’ll want to know before you go further into Darkness Rises.

You Should Have Four Characters on One Account

When you start the game you begin by choosing a character from four classes: Warrior, Wizard, Berserker, or an Assassin. Don’t worry about if you don’t like the first class you choose in Darkness Rises. You can create a character for each of the four classes, and you’re encouraged to do so.

By having multiple characters on an account, all of the characters receive a stat bonus. This bonus increases based on how many you have and their own level. Spend time on each of them to raise the bonus further. This passive stat increases the more you play the game with each character, granting you access to higher level content.

Track Your Character Stats to Keep Up with Progression

You’ll find you’re going to loot plenty of equipment to add to your character. The best thing you can do is start choosing stats you want to focus on, such as defense, health, attack, critical damage, or critical damage. This will determine how your character plays.

Enhancement and stat priorities

Only enhance equipment with stats you want to prioritize. You don’t want to equip a slightly better weapon and remove your old one, but realize the new item doesn’t bulk up the stats you want your character focusing on. When you start to get to level 25, refer to your character’s stats page as often as possible to observe your progression.

You can find the character stat page in the gear tab. When you’re in the gear tab, find the small double-stacked arrow, just below your character. Click on that and a massive page detailing your character’s attack, defense, and PvP information. You’ll want to remember how to get this page as you climb your way up to level 30.

About The “Best in Slot” Suggestions

When you’re on the item screen, the game will help determine the best equipment for your character with a small red dot next to it. This does help you take a quick glance at your items to know which ones you should focus on, but you should look at the finer details before deciding anything.

To do this, click on an item and you should see a descriptive pop up breaking down the stats of the item. Though the game tells you to use a specific item, if you’re focusing on certain stats for your characters this screen will become your best friend to inform you what item you should enhance and keep on your character.

Use Your Blacksmith Wisely

At first, you won’t visit your blacksmith too often. He’s a resource you check in on every 24 hours to receive a handful of polishes and then go handle your other quests. Later on he becomes an extremely important mechanic in allowing you to achieve higher quality gear, where he fuses your fully leveled items together.

When you have two fully leveled up equipment pieces of the same grade, he fuses them together to craft an item a full grade higher.

You might feel tempted to use this to jump from grade C to grade B equipment, but you want to resist this thought process. The best thing to do is wait until all of your equipment is grade B and start doing this then. The reason: it doesn’t take long to jump from grade C to grade B, far less time than it takes to progress from grade B to Grade A. 

Save your gold and materials for when all of your equipment is grade B. This way, when you obtain these powerful items you can use your reserved gold to start jumping up to grade A far faster than you previously would have. This will make hitting the hefty power wall of 115,000 feel like not such a bad experience.

The Game Tells You Where to Farm

One of the biggest things you’ll find yourself doing in Darkness Rises is farming levels for gear. In order to enhance your gear, your stats, and provide materials for your Blacksmith you need to complete missions successfully. Running through the latest adventures may get you some gear, but you should always refer to your essence page to see what adventure levels you should farm.

When you’re on the essence page, click on one of the six stats revolving around your character. Choose the stat you want to level up first. When you highlight this stat, you’ll see the two components you need to level it up. If you’re lacking of these two materials, click on the material and in the pop up menu click on the ‘source’ tab to see what adventure locations you can find this resource in.

Reserve Your Gold For Polish

A key component to Darkness Rises is upgrading your gear using weaker items or polishes. Of the two, polishes provide 1.5 more power than an item of the same grade. The game often quotes this throughout its loading menus.

You want to take this seriously when you have all of your gear at grade B. At grade B, you’re wasting gold by breaking down weaker items to upgrade your current build. It’s not worth it in the long run. Reserve your gold as much as possible for the polish materials you’re going to receive from doing dungeons and raids. 

Do not worry about this before all of the equipment you have on your character reaches grade B. By that point, you should be a little past level 25 and nearly to 115,000 power.

Focus on Weapon Grades Not Sets

Many of the weapons you run across will come with a set bonus. When your character wears all of the items in the set, they receive a decent bonus to their stats to greatly increase their capabilities.

Thought these set bonuses are tempting to acquire, you do not want to focus on those until you start wearing grade S equipment. That’s definitely a long time to wait for those, but before you reach this point you want to make sure your character can receive the most power they possibly can. Focusing too much on a set bonus can ruin your character’s power progression, making it difficult for them to progress further in the story and adventure levels.


There you have it! These useful tips should help you out during your journey into Darkness Rises! Make sure to spend time on all four of your characters and complete their weekly and daily quests.

For more information on Darkness Rises, keep it here at GameSkinny!