Undecember beginner’s guide: Get started unlocking your Rune Hunter’s full potential
Time to take yourfavorite Android controllerfor a spin; an action RPG similar toBlizzard’s Diablo Immortalmakes a welcomed entry on Android. Undecember is Line Games' answer to creating thebest alternative to Diablo Immortal. But, as expected, developing your playstyle, farming essential gear, and deciphering optimization practices is only par for the course, so we’ve compiled a handy beginner’s guide to help new players get up to speed.
Get started as a Rune Hunter in Undecember
You’ll have a few preliminary steps to follow before you can play. The first is selecting your primary login method; it’s crucial to ensure you don’t lose your data if you delete the app/swap your gaming device.
Next up, you’ll fight multi-waves of enemies during the tutorial phase, letting you test out three weapon types, melee, bow, and staff. Every weapon unlocks a different palette of skills. We recommend using this as a baseline to decide which set of skills/weapon playstyle you prefer to build for your Rune Hunter.
Creating your character
The character customization tools for Undecember are limiting, but at least it is implemented.
Select between a male and female; you can choose a face type, skin tone, and hair style/hair color. Once you’ve finished customizing your character, tap onCreate.
Enter your name and tapCreateto finish the character creation process. Congratulations, you’re now one step closer to beginning your heroic journey!
Battle system fundamentals
Red and blue orbs at the bottom of your screen are your health (HP) and Mana. Once an orb is emptied, your bar reaches zero; HP depleting to zero results in your character dying and returning to a teleport, and Mana reaching zero disables your magic use. Therefore, skills require using Mana and HP as basic survival measures. Thankfully you can restore your Mana and HP with potions, which is why you should always stock up before tackling a challenging quest.
The bread and butter of any ARPG game is tapping on your skills to perform actions, managing those cooldowns, and then reactively choosing how to begin your fight engagements/disengagements. Equipping a dodge skill (like roll and teleport) and playing to your weapon strengths is essential. Bow and magic wielders prefer to kite from monsters and spam skills, while melee builds will focus on crowd control and survival while in close contact.
See the gifs below for examples of the three available styles you’ll encounter in the tutorial.
Melee prefers close-quarter fights and using slashes to control the incoming waves of enemies.
Bow classes prefer a mixture of powerful blows to defeat enemies and use skills to support this playstyle.
Magic wielders have to manage Mana, but the access to elemental skills can quickly turn the tides of a fight and enable a versatile build for both supporting and damage-dealing.
Elemental types and resistances in Undecember
The game’s many monsters contain an elemental type and elemental resistances. Below we’ve listed all the elemental types you’ll encounter in Undecember:
The types and their resistances are important for boss fights and dungeons. Your loadouts should complement the type and resistance, especially for deploying spells and weapons that a boss or monsters won’t resist. For example, a boss might resist Fire, meaning you’ll do far less damage than you normally would with your Fire spells; in this case, you may consider Cold and Lightning attacks for your loadout.
Customize Undecember’s skill loadout using skill runes
Adding link runes is how you’ll enhance your skills; you can make your skills stronger or add effects.
To get started, you first equip skill runes on a hexagon grid. Essentially adding a skill rune to any empty slots effectively equips it, and you can add a link rune to the skill rune to enhance it. Link runes must match the skill rune’s slot color; otherwise, you can’t connect the runes.
Once you’ve finished customizing your skill runes, select a skill to register it under your equippable skill slots. You have two slot sets available, leaving you five equippable skills per slot. Mix and match to your heart’s content; remember that some skills are locked behind which weapon you have equipped.
Rune growth
you may level up your runes by selecting elements as material. Experience points transfer to runes of the same color, but only 80% of experience points are transferred to ruins of different colors. You have five elements to select: red, green, blue, earth, and light. You gain bonus experience by transferring elements of the same color as your selected rune during rune growth. However, earth and light will still give a bonus experience for runes of any color.
Leveling up runes increases the potency behind skill runes and linked runes. Be sure to collect element material while looting and dissembling gear, all while progressing through ten acts.
Classifying runes by type
To understand the rune system, it is much easier to break down the rune types you’ll encounter. Remember, not every rune is created equally.
Rune enchants
You can begin rune enchants after completing Act I: Scout in Trouble. Essentially you can change how a rune works when you’ve enchanted it; these include their grade, color, number of slots, and link locations (on the hexagons). To change, or enchant your rune, you’ll need to acquire essence. The essence determines the property change to the rune.
Visit Pauline in Malo Front to start the rune enchantment.Note: You need to buy and collect essences to complete the enchanting process.
How Alchemy works in Undecember
After completing Act I, you will reach a new town hub, Fortress Plaza. At Fortress Plaza, you will learn Alchemy, which gives you the ability to craft potions. If health and magic potions have yet to become your best friends by now, they will be for Act II’s story dungeon. Stocking up on potions is essential, as both health and mana deplete exceedingly fast during elite and boss encounters.
To get started on Alchemy, tap the Alchemy bench and selectAlchemy. Next, tapBrewingand selectHP Potion; you can convert less potent HP Potions to the higher grade, providing more value than the Minor Potions you buy from Peddlers.
The second most important service the Alchemy bench provides for beginners is the ability to synthesize (see theSynthesisoption) new runes. For example, placing three random runes will yield a new special rune of the same type. Once you’ve acquired more unused runes, try out this feature and see if you may land more.
Improve your Undecember builds with the Zodiac system
As you make progress in Act I, you’ll unlock Zodiac. Zodiac is where you’ll first improve the base stats of your character. You have the choice to invest in strength, dexterity, and intelligence.
To level up one of the base stats, tap on theplus signby the stat of choice, then selectApply>Ok.
You only have so many free resets (removing all invested points) until Act II; otherwise, it will cost Gold or Stardust of Oblivion.
Unlocking specializations
Once you have trait points, you can unlock specializations. Each specialization will have a separate constellation where you can add trait points for each starting node: moon, star, and sun. To access the other constellations, you need to meet the conditions of having spent a number of trait points in your previous Zodiac tree; for example, Leaf requires 15 trait points to access.
Similar to Zodiac stat points, you also have a limited number of resets with trait points; otherwise, it costs Gold or Stardust of Oblivion.
Starter builds for beginners in Undecember
Not having a starting class may seem daunting, so we’ve developed a few pointers on the three main archetypes and how to complement these with runes and equipment. These generalist builds will help you get through the early game content until you’ve invested in your preferred playstyle; thankfully, the Zodiac’s point reset feature comes in handy to rework your builds (free until Act II).
The Archer
The Warrior
Obtain equipment and gear up
You’ll acquire new equipment from loot. Visiting a blacksmith grants you the option to disassemble or enchant your gear. Enchanting gear requires essence; dissembling gear gives materials like essence used for enchanting your gear. You’ll come across more essence from slaying monsters.
All your equipment has stat requirements (strength, dexterity, intelligence, and player-level checks). Your gear is separated into grades, normal, magic, rare, unique, and legendary; generally, the higher grade, the more enchantment options your gear has, but in some cases, it’ll already have some pre-determined effects.
Engineering your Undecember playstyle
Undecember is an ARPG with multiplayer elements bringing in a fully customizable build experience that isn’t class-locked, unlike ARPGs like Diablo Immortal and Torchlight: Infinite, where a preset class system dictates your playstyle. Instead, the combinations appear endless thanks to the gear system, Zodiac, and skill customization. The game is still undergoing changes to improve the user experience. Still, newplayers coming from Diablo Immortalmay find Undecember to be a respectable game in its own right. And if you’re ready to dive into the grind and begin cultivating your dream build, check out the app below.
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