These are dark times for the town of Bestia. The Lich King has risen from the dead to command forth an army of shades and zombies to claim the land as his own. Lives have been lost, allies have turned, and with a land crawling with demons, does hope yet dare to flourish? You, a young fox under the tutelage of a wise hamster master, are the very hope that Bestia needs — you, the Tailed Demon Slayer.
South Korean developer CookApps, the creators of AFK Dungeon and Shadow Knights, brings a dark fable to your mobile devices: Tailed Demon Slayer. This game is an idle RPG similar to the likes of Nonstop Knight where an anthropomorphic fox fends off flocks of festering fiends with flash and flair in their every move. Intense battles abound in this grim quest for restoration and survival.
The game, while quite easy to learn, can get difficult later on. You will encounter behemoth bosses, enemies that won’t die, and more pesky undead warriors that will just hinder you from proceeding. If you’ve found yourself stuck in a couple of levels or so, or if you’re just new to the game, then you’ve come to the right place! If you want to know how you can make your fox stronger, read our Tailed Demon Slayer beginner’s guide below!
1. Ads Give You Power
Let’s get this fact out of the way.
We’re all well aware that ads are everywhere these days. With them not just in our TVs, but in our YouTube videos, websites that we browse, and now, even our video games! As annoying as they are, sometimes these short advertisements may give bonuses to those who watch them, especially if they’re in our games. For Tailed Demon Slayer, ads are more likely to give you power than they are to hinder your progress.
Sacrifice a few seconds (or minutes) to make the fox stronger. The ads in this game can offer you a few interesting things:
- Reduce Fairy Cage opening times
- Four-Leaf Clover buffs
- More Dungeon attempts
- AFK login bonus
While it can be annoying to watch ads all the time, consider that after you’re done watching them, you’ll be playing the game ad-free for a long time. It may be a bitter pill to swallow, yes, but going through ads for the sole sake of making your fox stronger is worth every minute of it. Your fox will thank you after they demolish that one boss that has been hindering them this whole time.
Granted that this is an idle game, you won’t be needing to watch too many ads all at once. Most of the time you’ll be away, making your fox stronger, making Returns, etc. The ads aren’t too intrusive in Tailed Demon Slayer, but they are quite useful if you look past their legendarily bad reputation.
Speaking of this being an idle game, we know that games are best played if you play them yourself but did you know that your gaming experience can be enhanced if you set this to Auto?
2. Set The Game To Auto For Maximum Efficiency
Idle games are games that usually play themselves. The player puts minimal effort into playing the game but that doesn’t mean there are little tricks here and there to improve their progress.
In Tailed Demon Slayer, you have the choice of playing the game manually or setting it to Auto. Where manual play allows you to dodge telegraphed attacks (these attacks hitting harder than usual), Auto mode makes it so that the game presses your skill buttons faster than you could. If you really think about it, there won’t be anything to dodge if all your enemies are dead.
Auto mode also offers you the chance to view the fox’s stats, equipment, skills, and more, allowing you to improve on them while they continue to crush the undead hordes. You’ll be able to concentrate on building them up faster than while you’re manually controlling them in fights. Not to mention, setting your game to Auto mode will let you do all sorts of things outside of it. We will discuss this more in another item on this list.
With strategy being a priority in this game, there is one very important thing you should remember at all times… Well, most of the time, anyway.
3. Commit To Only Two Weapons For The Campaign
One interesting feature that Tailed Demon Slayer has to offer the player is a mix-and-match fighting style.
This can be achieved through the four different weapons that the fox wields:
- Greatsword – The fox brandishes a massive blade that boasts of raw damage and attack power. The radius of this weapon’s attacks is also quite wide, making it easy to take enemies down en masse.
- Bow – A rapid-fire, long-ranged weapon. The bow grants the fox the ability to kill enemies from a distance and is quite efficient at taking down targets one at a time.
- Daggers – These twin blades, albeit short, grant the fox deadly swiftness and debilitating attacks. It enshrouds the enemy in a toxic gas that makes them take more damage from the fox.
- Staff – The staff is a powerful weapon that gives the fox command over the elements and a specialization in debuffs. With frost, fire, and furious storms, enemies could be vanquished in droves.
The fox can carry two weapons at the same time, switching between them every now and then. Upon starting the game, you will be told to pair up two weapons together. What you choose is entirely up to you, but what we are strongly suggesting is to stick to just two of these and prioritize those instead of upgrading all of them.
The rationale behind this is that keeping to two weapons will allow you to progress through the campaign much faster and trounce any boss you may encounter. The Wave Bosses are particularly troublesome since losing to them pushes you 5 stages back. Being constant with two chosen weapons will keep your progress steady with your likelihood of taking down every Wave Boss being increased every time. Sure, it’d be good to have all weapons strengthened, but consider doing so an endgame goal.
Besides having an easier time upgrading two weapons instead of four, gaining Weapon Proficiency is not as easy as it looks, and swapping out of a pair entirely to strengthen another is a chore. You’ll need to use the new weapons for an equally long time compared to your original pair, hindering you from much progress during the campaign. In turn, this will keep your fox weak overall.
Aside from sticking to just two weapons at a time, there are more ways you can strengthen your fox.
4. Keep The Fox Trained And Their Equipment And Fairies In Check
Leveling up is usually the best way to make your character strong in any RPG.
Gaining levels increase stats and opens the character to more powerful skills, and the strength to fight bigger, stronger enemies. Most of the time, leveling up is the most important aspect of an RPG but your character’s true strength lies in how they are built. You can’t proceed to certain areas without your character brandishing its true power. This is all especially true for Tailed Demon Slayer.
Making your fox stronger is as easy as tapping the Training button. Here, your fox has three stats:
- Attack – This affects the overall damage dealt by the fox.
- Health – This is how much health the fox has. The higher the number, the less likely they are to die outright.
- Health Recovery – This is how quickly the fox recovers from its injuries. After a few seconds of not taking damage, the fox’s health will steadily recover.
While it may seem that the three parameters are simplistic but important all around, we recommend that you prioritize Attack since killing enemies is what will keep you moving forward. As we said earlier, your fox won’t be hurt if the enemies are dead.
Leveling up these parameters requires gold, but some other things that the fox wields grant them awesome powers. For instance, the fox also sports some equipment slots where they can wield your weapons of choice as well as don powerful armor pieces.
These passively increase the fox’s stats. If you’d like to increase the grade of a piece of equipment, you may simply merge their duplicates by pressing the Upgrade button. If you have a lot of duplicates, pressing the Upgrade All at Once button will automatically merge them all.
Additionally, the fox can possess magic relics (though, we don’t know what’s so magical about a Worm-Eaten Apple). These relics come with special perks that improve every time you level them up. Suppose that you have a Letter from Lich King. This item, as you improve it with Relic Pieces, increases your Attack as well as your Crit Chance. There are similar other relics that can stack effects with it.
Further making the fox more powerful are tiny but tenacious allies called Fairies. These floating furies call upon spells that can buff the fox or even harm the fox’s enemies. If they are the latter, they usually draw their strength from a percentage of the fox’s current Attack stat. Each of them behaves quite differently, so pick Fairies that you think will suit your play style. Much like equipment, the Fairies can be upgraded by merging duplicates.
Apart from granting the fox buffs and extra skills, it’s great to have a team of Fairies that synchronize with each other. For instance, if you get Cactus, Glacio, and Aqua, you’ll be able to deal enough damage to clear crowds. The Cactus scatters Explosion Stickers, Aqua creates Ice Spears, and Glacio buffs the fox with more critical hit damage. The results for the enemy will be catastrophic.
Lastly, there are Masteries, extra perks that vastly improve the way your fox fights. But a single paragraph in this bullet won’t do it justice! Onto the next item…
5. Pick Masteries That Work For You
Upon opening the fox’s menu, you will be greeted by the Masteries button sitting right in the middle.
A Mastery is an upgradeable perk that drastically improves the way your fox fights. It can range from increasing the gold received from enemies to lowering skill cooldowns, from dealing more damage to boss monsters to having lifesteal with every attack, and more. The Masteries section is chock full of new ways to make your fox much stronger.
Masteries are divided into 4 categories:
- Talent
This category focuses on the overall performance of the fox. Apart from increasing offensive and defensive stats, this tree also offers the improvement of how much money the fox can generate as well.
- Skill
In this tree, you will find Masteries that improve the power of the fox’s skills. They involve granting the fox lesser skill cooldowns, more skill damage, evasion while using skills, or even lifesteal while using skills. They also affect Weapon Swap cooldowns.
- Battle
This tree is similar to the Talent tree. The Masteries here focus on the survival of your fox and the swifter destruction of the enemy. They increase the damage the fox deals toward normal enemies and boss enemies alike while offering other neat stuff like damage reduction and buffs after every time a normal attack is used.
- Assist
Lastly, we have the Assist tree. The Masteries here improve how far the fox goes every time it performs a Return or a Rush. Among these is an improvement to how quickly the fox progresses when you leave the game offline and the chance to skip through stages after you’ve Returned.
Picking the Masteries you need is very important. For one, you could think of how you would want your fox to grow. Do this by planning out which trees you want to increase first. In our example, we chose to focus on Talent, Battle, and Skill. Our foxes will go far as they fight, but they will start at a very low stage when they Return. Whatever Masteries work for you, single them out and make your fox powerful.
Stat-wise, the fox themselves can be powerful. However, did you know that part of the fox’s power is drawn from the loot they collect? Let us tell you how.
6. Run Dungeons For Extra Loot
In every RPG, loot abounds.
Either every player wants to collect it all like a medieval hoarder or they simply like having options at their disposal. Regardless of the reason, loot is ubiquitous and can be rewarded for killing monsters, finishing quests, vanquishing bosses, and more. But most famously, good loot in an RPG can be found in dungeons. Such is the case in Tailed Demon Slayer.
The Dungeon feature of Tailed Demon Slayer lets you access 4 different dungeons that are labeled with what the enemies drop. These Dungeons have 15 different difficulties and are timed instances where the fox needs to fulfill an objective to clear it:
- Gold Dungeon
The fox’s objective here is to annihilate a cult of gold-worshipping sloths that mindlessly wander about. They will not attack, but they will not stop either. Their prancing only comes to a halt when they have been slain. This dungeon grants hefty sums of gold and will be finished when the fox has collected up to the given limit.
- Gemstone Dungeon
Fancy a defense mission? The goal of this particular Dungeon is to defend the large Gemstone in the middle of the map from hordes of monsters. After successfully defending it from 10 waves, the fox goes home with Gemstones. Despite of that, the run may also be cut short if a large Gemstone has been destroyed. If that happens, the fox gets nothing and the attempt of running the Dungeon gets spent.
- Equipment Dungeon
This Dungeon is unique for not having a time limit. Even so, the challenge here is that the fox squares off against a powerful boss hoarding all the equipment to themselves. Utmost preparation is needed before entering this Dungeon and we strongly suggest using the Four-Leaf Clover buffs (which we will discuss soon). It is here where the fox can obtain new pieces of equipment.
- Equipment Scroll Dungeon
This last Dungeon is the biggest one yet. The fox has to ascend a tower filled with bosses and their undead minions. Here, the goal is to fill up a kill meter before the time meter reaches the end. Just like the Equipment Dungeon, this one takes lots of preparation but with a twist. Each floor will grant buffs to the fox if they are currently wielding any of the highlighted weapons. Naturally, taking on a floor with no buffs will be quite difficult. This Dungeon drops Equipment Scrolls which are used to level up the fox’s equipment.
After exhausting your attempts, the Dungeons will offer one extra attempt via an ad. Using that attempt will put your selected Dungeon on a cooldown, making it unavailable for a few hours. Think of it as a way for you to test the might of your fox. If your fox fails, then they have yet to become stronger.
Among the Dungeons we mentioned, there is but one resource that stands out the most.
7. Spend Your Gemstones On Important Stuff
After victoriously conquering the Gemstone Dungeon, your fox returns to their mission, Gemstones in its pocket. What shall they do with it?
Like in most online games today, premium currencies are a must for the developers to earn. Most of them can be purchased through cash but in other games, they can be earned through playing. Tailed Demon Slayer rewards its players with Gemstones through the completion of Daily and Weekly Tasks, the Gemstone Dungeon we mentioned earlier, and more. No matter how you get them, it is how you spend them that is important.
Sure, Gemstones can be spent in more ways than one such as speeding up the opening of a Fairy Cage, but we strongly suggest that you spend these precious resources on something else. One way we recommend spending them is by drawing equipment as well as new Fairy Cages. Even though you don’t get a lot, your mileage points in the shop (a bar that fills up with each draw) will eventually get you a top-tier item.
Another great way to make good use of your Gemstones is to buy keys for Monster Card boxes. If you don’t know what those are yet, read on!
8. Use Matching Monster Cards
After reaching Stage 700, the fox will be revisited by their master, showing them powerful Monster Cards.
These cards can be obtained by opening chests that contain them. You can get more keys through Gemstone purchase. While they are expensive, they are definitely worth the price as Monster Cards often come with scary bonuses (well, scary for the enemies anyway).
Take for instance the pair we have chosen above. This pair allows the fox to deal an increased amount of damage to enemies whose health reaches a certain threshold. Eventually, as you play, you will be able to unlock more card slots at the price of some Gemstones, but that means you will have something worth working toward. That aside, keep in mind the stats of the card but more importantly the symbol they bear.
Having two cards with matching symbols will activate the passive ability. These can range from increasing the power of a certain skill, to increasing your fox’s stats based on how many SS equipment they are wearing, the damage of SS Fairies, etc. Once more, this ultimately depends on your playstyle. While some cards may assist in killing your enemies faster, some of them may simply increase the abilities and stats of your fox.
Do you know what else can give your fox that temporary “Oomph!”? The Four-Leaf Clover.
9. Wield The Four-Leaf Clover’s Powers
While the Four-Leaf Clover is a universal symbol of luck, in Tailed Demon Slayer, it is a force to be reckoned with.
The Four-Leaf Clover grants the fox a temporary overall boost. Each leaf grants a different boost while active: attack, skill damage, damage against bosses, and critical damage. Once all four leaves are alight, the center of the Clover glows golden, bestowing an enchantment of speed onto the fox. For a few minutes, the fox will become a mighty warrior who is feared by the undead fiends. This can all be achieved by watching a couple of ads, of course.
When the leaves have cooled down, they will gain experience. This will allow you to level them up and make the buffs that the fox receives even stronger. Every time you activate the Four-Leaf Clover, the fox will go all out on their enemies, always much stronger than before. Do this if you want to get past Wave Bosses or the Level Boss. But this doesn’t mean the Four-Leaf Clover’s powers are for the main campaign only; its powers are universal.
This means using the Four-Leaf Clover will make it easier for you to win Dungeons, especially if you want to increase the level of said Dungeons. Additionally, the buffs of the Four-Leaf Clover will remain active even after you Return. Just imagine the fox coming back some levels down to farm enemies that they once considered tough. Oh boy, are they in for a painful surprise or what?
Speaking of Returning and Rushing…
10. Return And Rush Often
In most RPGs, grinding is an unavoidable factor. This is where your character stays at a certain part of the map, killing mobs for experience and loot. Thankfully, this game made it slightly easier for the player.
Upon Returning, you receive a sum of Relic Pieces which are used for you to strengthen your Relics. Depending on how far you went, these Relic Pieces increase. Some Relics and Masteries will affect how many stages back you will go and sometimes may help you jump stages so you can get back to where you were much quicker. Now, this is also where Rushing comes in handy.
Your fox, with all the newfound strength in its body, takes to the sky and dashes through the enemy hordes, taking gold and experience along with them. This makes the fox jump several stages ahead, slightly sparing you the hassle of waiting to go from Stage 30 to Stage 700. Just like Returning, some Relics and Masteries may help your Rushing by increasing how many stages the fox flies past as well as the number of times you can perform the Rush. A particular Mastery may also reduce the cooldown time of Rushing.
Returning and Rushing both work hand in hand and they greatly help in the contribution of your fox’s growth in power. Do this often, even if you think you can complete the stage ahead of you. Your fox will thank you later.
In brief, Tailed Demon Slayer is an idle RPG that focuses greatly on Autoplay. Ad watching is important, so while it may seem tedious, you’re missing out on all the great things you can gain from doing that. Autoplay notwithstanding, strategy is tantamount here to how you want your fox to progress.
Committing to two weapons at once, preferably the ones you’ve stuck with since the beginning is particularly important, and keeping your fox leveled with all their gear in check is one of the most important factors of might. Masteries will also greatly help you on your quest, but only pick those that you need.
As you progress, that’s when you can pick up on the ones you haven’t upgraded yet. Running Dungeons can easily get you the loot that you need. If you’re short on gold, Gemstones, equipment, or Equipment Scrolls, head on down to a Dungeon and win them. Gemstones are an especially rare commodity and thus spending them wisely should always be kept in mind. Once you’ve reached Stage 700, get yourself some Monster Cards and make sure they match.
Lastly, Return and Rush every now and then to empower the Relics that your fox carries. There are ways you can improve Returning and Rushing, and some of them are through Relics. It’s a win-win.
And that’s that for our Tailed Demon Slayer guide for beginners! Where your footsteps fall, may they be followed by the remains of the undead. Fight well, fight on!
Do you have any tips that you may impart to other would-be demon slayers? Is there anything you might disagree with in this Tailed Demon Slayer guide? Leave your thoughts in our comment section down below!