Playing a little like Darkest Dungeon, Iratus: Lord of the Dead is a tactical dark fantasy RPG where you control undead minions to slaughter opposing forces. As a dungeon crawler, your objectives are to work through battles and collect shiny upgrades on the path through.
How you walk this path is your choice, with the opportunity to sail the easier route with simpler enemies and lesser rewards or take on elite teams whenever given a chance. For both paths, you'll need to learn a little about the game; hopefully, these tips will do the trick.
It's good to note that your experience with Iratus: Lord of the Dead will largely depend on your difficulty level, as fights will be little-to-no trouble on the easiest setting.
7 The Fine Line Of Enemy Sanity
All enemies have a sanity meter, which can be decreased through attacks. These attacks act as debuffs upon the enemy, negating them from a traditional style of play. Those with a lower sanity meter are more susceptible, and have a chance for instantaneous death if sanity is at zero.
However, the downside is that enemies at low-tier sanity can try to flee from battle — something you need to do your best to prevent. Finding this sweet spot for sanity levels is imperative, and it isn't always best to whittle down this meter to its lowest point.
6 Use Stances And Buffs At The Beginning Of Battle
Stances are moves that take a turn but provide extra defense for your minions, whereas buffs encompass an array of things from increased attack, evasion, critical hits, and magic attacks. Many of these buffs will stick for the entire battle, so it's best to use them on the first turn.
Banshees, Werewolves, and Brides of Iratus all have great ally and defense-related powers, that can be used to bolster defenses before the real battle begins. Some can even cause enemies to miss attacks.
5 Always Deal With Armor First
Certain enemies have armor that you will need to destroy before you can land a solid hit on them. Armored enemies also have an increased chance of dodging your attacks. To combat this, you can use an armor-specific ability to break down their defenses.
For example, you can use a werewolf's Tear Up ability to break armor, and then use another minion to deal heavy damage. From here, you'll be able to defeat the enemy in the same way you would anyone else.
4 Don't Heal Before Every Battle
After coming out of a fight you're sure to have a few scratches and bruises, and might feel the need to heal your team to full health. Doing this will look like the sure answer, but you need to make sure you're not recovering after every single battle if you want to stock up on resources.
Playing the dangerous game and beginning a fight while injured will instead prove to be the safer option, so long as you act accordingly. Progressing through Iratus: Lord of the Dead will become easier further on, since you will have extra teams to fall back on.
3 Create A Bride Of Iratus
The creation tool is how you make new minions for your teams. A couple can be created early on, but for most others, you have to fulfill assignments to unlock these creations. From the offset you'll have Banshees and Skeletons, but also a Bride of Iratus — extremely capable ranged attackers able to survive the most troublesome encounters.
After completing the tutorial section, the next thing you should do is gather enough materials and complete fights to upgrade your Bride of Iratus. Then, when placing your Bride, do so in one of the back positions.
2 Place Stat Points Into Evasion
Upgrading health is one thing, but a much more valuable and all-around universal tactic is to place as many points into evasion as the game will allow. Dodging incoming hits is more effective, even if it means risking a game over by not upgrading other stats.
The best choices for evasion characters are always the ones that are weakest to damage, and those at the front of the party — if they can't handle bundles of damage being thrown at them. Evasion for minions that provide buffs to allies is also a priority.
1 You'll Die... A Lot
Dying is a part of the experience. The game tells you this at the very beginning. What might not be so obvious, however, is just how frequent these deaths will be, becoming an all too common occurrence. The frequency of these deaths also makes collecting resources for better upgrades incredibly difficult, to the point it feels nearly impossible.
There's nothing else you can do other than try again once you fail, testing out new tactics to see if this time is a success. And you know what? As frustrating as this process is, it pays off. Eventually, you will beat the fight you found yourself stuck on, even if it takes all day.