Dragon Epic is an addictive idle shooter game by Vietnamese developer ONESOFT that got released on Android last month. As you start the game, you’re thrown right into the action without further ado. In Dragon Epic, players lead a brigade of dragons, which can be evolved and upgraded, against an evil enemy.
Of course, there’s a little back story to the game which is revealed by the game’s description. So, the setting for Dragon Epic is a wild and mystical Viking world, where the Vale of Dragonia flourished until one-day darkness fell. The only hope for the Vale is for the dragons to rise up once again to defy the shadow forces, and bring peace and light back to their world.
In order to achieve this, players have to take on swarms of enemies, while effectively managing their dragon horde and resources, as to be able to usher in the most powerful and clear as many stages as possible. Now, to make your job easier, we have have compiled a detailed Dragon Epic beginner’s guide, that comes with a bunch of tips, cheats and strategies. So if you need some help to unlock the best dragons and free the Vale, then read on for some useful tips and tricks!
1. Start Creating New Dragons Right Away
Creating new dragons is the key element in Dragon Epic. At the beginning of each game, you are given ten eggs that can be hatched on screen. The egg supply is gradually restored (it takes a few seconds to generate a new egg), so don’t worry about depleting the amount.
Hatching an egg gets you a level 1 dragon named Malkior. This is your basic (green) dragon that comes with minimum DSP and HP. The good news is that you can level up dragons in exchange for gold, so these stats can be improved. Now, Malkiors are very important in the game, because they provide the basis for the more advanced and powerful dragons in your squad. Merging two level 1 dragons will result in a yellow level 2 one called Drugr, which is a bit more powerful than the Malkior.
Following this pattern, merging two level 2 dragons will result in a blue level 3 Paragos one, while merging two level 3 dragons will produce a red level 4 Demora one and so on and on. It’s important to note here that even if upper-tier dragons are more powerful by default, you shouldn’t forget to level them up, as to allow them to increase their respective DSP and HP. Do note, however, that this will cost you copious amounts of gold, so you need to be mindful of how you administer your finances.
Lower-tier dragons (especially level 1 ones) are incredibly easy to annihilate. This is why some of these dragons will perish quite quickly. When this happens, only their blurred outlines will be visible on the screen.
While dead dragons are incapable of shooting and damaging the adversary, they can still be merged with a dragon of the same level which will result in a new active dragon. Also, once a stage is cleared, the inactivated dragons will spring back into action, so you can continue using them.
2. Know The Types Of Dragons, Their Classes And Skills
Recruiting more powerful dragons is the key to a successful gameplay in Dragon Epic, so it’s important that you get acquainted with the dragon caste and their characteristics as soon as possible. There are two types of dragon classes in the game:
– Normal / Common
– Elite
Normal grade dragons can be acquired by hatching eggs and they can go up to level 11. As for the Elite dragons they came in three types: Rare, Epic, and Legendary and they are the result of merging level 10 or level 11 dragons together. The order or their power is as follows: Legendary>Epic>Rare. This means that while you have a fairly good shot at hatching Rare and Epic types, it will a bit more difficult to get a Legendary type. The trick is to try and try again until you do.
Elite dragons can be leveled up just like the Normal ones, however, it will cost you a lot more gold in doing so. Which is why you need to hoard as much coin as you possibly can (more on that in section 4). Additionally, unlike Normal Dragons, Elite dragons can be Evolved. This will again cost a truckload of gold, but evolving them unlocks their skills, which provide useful new traits that can be exploited in your favor. Each Elite dragon has three of them.
3. Manually Control Dragons To Be More Effective At Killing Enemies
Since the game is a continuous shooter, you have the option of simply positioning your dragons in formation and just letting them fight it out with the swarms of enemies by themselves. You should try different ways of arranging them and see which configuration inflicts the most damage (for example, Elite dragons in front, Normal ones on flanks).
While this strategy works well at lower levels, as you reach the harder stages, we found it is more effective to manually control the dragons to ensure the fast annihilation of your foes with as little damage the troops as possible. Keep in mind that you can only control one dragon at a time, so it would be best to pick the best shooter on your team and attack the enemies that might have slipped through the cracks of your formation.
During each stage, attacks are staged in three different waves, which each one being more difficult than the last. The game will show you how much time you have left to clear each stage at the top of the screen.
Players start the game with up to 2 Elite dragons and up to 13 Normal dragons on screen. Even so, you are not limited to these numbers, as you are allowed to increase the number of dragons in your formation. This is done via the Lab which, we will talk about more in-depth in section 5.
4. Gather As Much Resources As Possible
We’ve already told you that to level up your dragons and evolve your elite troops you will need coin and lots of it. But on top of gold, Dragon Epic also makes use of additional resources including Gems and Stones.
At this point it has to be pointed out that Dragon Epic can be played in either in F2P or P2W. If you’re not looking to invest any real-world money into this game, then you’ll have to buckle up as the game’s progression is super slow and can become quite tedious in this scenario.
Thankfully, the game gives you ample opportunities to acquire resources. Simply checking in the game every day will unlock a bunch of resources and sometimes even some nice upper-tier dragons. Moreover, to get more gems, players need to make sure to check the Achievement tab and claim whatever is on offer. The same stands true for the Mailbox, which can offer you a free batch of gems, as well as additional power-ups.
You can also try your luck at the Roulette, which lets you spin the wheel for a chance to win a jackpot (for example, 50 gems) or other goodies. While you get one free spin per day, you can always watch an ad to get more tries.
Better yet, the game continues its flow in offline mode. You can get additional gold and extra dragons just by doing virtually nothing, because the fighting in the game continues, even as you exit the app. So if you leave the game at stage 24 and return to it in a few hours, you’ll find that the game has progressed to stage 59, for example, and that your coin pouch has been refilled. New dragons will also become available. It should be said here that it’s a good idea to start improving things like the Offline reward rate in the Lab to ensure that the bounty you receive offline gets maximized.
5. Make Good Use Of The Lab
The Lab is the place you can spend Gems and Stones to unlock upgrades to improve certain aspects of gameplay. For example, in exchange for 450 gems you can increase the maximum of Elite dragons you can have on your team from 5 to 6. Spend 300 gems and you can decrease the time for auto hatching eggs or increase offline flight time rate. There are several levels which you can upgrade to and with each one your team will see a positive development of some sort.
Additionally, players need to explore the Stone tab as well, where you use Stones to get similar upgrades like Increasing Maxing Eggs numbers from 10 to 11 or Decrease time Auto Fusion for 300 stones. The latter option enables the lowering of egg auto fusion time in Auto mode, a feature that we will talk about more, later.
We recommend that you use the Lab to maximize the number of Elite and Normal dragons as soon as possible by spending the needed resources to level up. We’d also like to suggest you invest in growing the Offline reward rate and Offline fight time rate (more on that in section 10).
6. Watch Ads To Get Extra Goodies
Speaking more about resources, we recommend constantly checking the Shop, a feature mostly dedicated to those who are willing to spend real money to win. Paying up cash will have the effect of speeding up the game considerably. You can get gems, gold, but also useful packs of higher-tier dragons by using your credit card.
However, there’s also a Free tab you can take advantage of here, which unlocks Gems, Stones or upper-tier dragons in exchange for watching a series of ads. While this might be annoying to some, it’s a simple and honest way to get the resources you need. For example, players can watch 75 videos and claim a tier 11 Mega Ludak dragon. Even so, keep in mind that there’s a limited number of ads to watch each day, so even if you could mentally bear to go through all of them in one go, you still won’t be able to get the dragon immediately.
Ads are scattered all over the game, so you’re bound to bump into them on other occasions too. For instance, you’re given the option to continue a game you’ve lost in exchange for watching an ad. The other choice is to go back in the game with five stages. Ads watching is also required when trying out your luck with the roulette.
7. Take Down All The Bosses, Here’s How
As you advance in the game, bosses will start to appear. You’re not required to take them on, if you don’t want to, as fighting them won’t impede your progress in clearing stages, but we recommend that you do. Why? Because winning a battle with a boss means you get to grab some extra resources, and that always comes in handy. Especially if you’re approaching this game in F2P mode.
Bosses don’t appear super often and they are not very varied but when they do players will face them in an arena and using only Elite dragons for attack. This is one of the reasons why it’s important to try and create Elite dragons as soon as you can in the game.
The game allows you to attack the boss using only one of the dragons from your squad. You can pick whichever you want, and if that particular dragon dies in the fight, it will be replaced by one of the remaining ones, until you win the battle or the whole troop dies. Obviously, at first bosses are easier to destroy, but as you advance in the game, they get stronger and more obnoxious. So keep hatching those eggs to create as many Elite dragons as you can.
When you’re fighting the boss, you will be in charge of manually controlling your dragon. The trick to stay alive when fighting a boss is to constantly move your dragon around and make sure it ditches the direct attacks coming from the enemy. With more advanced bosses, it might take a while before you can actually defeat then, but if you keep your dragon in motion you should be fine. In return for your efforts you’ll get to have your fill of Gems and Stones.
8. Use The Return Function As Many Times As It Works for You
As you progress to the upper stages, the game gets extremely crowded. You’ll be comforted by increasingly bigger swarms of enemies attacking you from every direction and in order to keep your dragon horde alive, we suggest taking manual control of some of the dragons to ramp up the killing spree.
But by doing this, during harder levels, you can no longer dedicate your efforts in hatching eggs and merging dragons (unless you’re flying on auto – more on that later), the game just makes it pretty impossible to multi-task like that, despite this being an idle game where you don’t have to be active if you don’t feel like it.
Luckily, the game has a useful option for those who want less enemies to worry about. You can simply use the Return function and go back to the game’s very beginning (stage 1). Here, of course, enemies are a lot scarcer, so you can have a relaxed go at merging dragons.
There’s another important reasons why you should consider using the Return function as many times as possible. It comes with rewards in gold. So if you find yourself in a position where you can’t clear a certain stage and you think that leveling up your dragons (especially the Elite dragons) might be of help, but you don’t have enough coin to do so, the solution might be to use the Return function. Don’t worry about losing the progress you have made so far, as the game is quick to make headway, so you’ll end up where you left off in no time.
Our recommendation is to use the Return function as much as possible, be it for getting more coin or for getting enemies out of the way so you can merge. Even so, make sure not to overdo it, as the rewards shrink in proportion to the frequency of use. You’ll have to wait 30 minutes between Returns.
9. Try The Auto Function Whenever You Can
Like in most games, upper levels are designed to be more challenging, and Dragon Epic is no different. Indeed, it becomes gradually more difficult to keep up the resistance against the increasing number of enemies, while also making a priority out of hatching eggs and merging dragons.
Above, we detailed one way of dealing with this situation – use the Return option. But the game offers up another alternative which can be woven into your strategy. Players can make use of an Auto function. We recommend you use it when things get hard or when you don’t feel like doing the hatching yourself. When in Auto, also make sure you activate the Hatching Speed power ups to increase egg hatching pace. These constantly become available throughout the game.
This way you’ll be ensuring that the hatching and merging process is taken care of fast and effective, while you can turn your attention to manually controlling your dragons and destroying the enemy swiftly. As useful as the auto function is you won’t be able to take advantage of it whenever you feel like it, as it’s not always available. For instance, you have to unlock the Auto Play in 24 Hours x1 power-up in the Lab in order to be able to use it 24 hours straight. Obviously, if you feel like you’d rather retake the control of the game, you can always deactivate the option with a quick tap.
Dragon Epic certainly has a lot under its belt, in terms of proving a fun and addictive experience to mobile players. While the game is really quite similar to DragonSky, a title produced by Com2uS, it does have its very own vibe, so it’s definitely worth a try. As we conclude this beginner’s guide for Dragon Epic, we hope it will be useful to you in unlocking as many dragons as possible and speeding up your progress in the game. If you played Dragon Epic for a while and have uncovered additional tips or tricks that you haven’t seen in our guide, we invite you to share your knowledge in the comment section!