Dungeon Siege III - General Gameplay Tips

Here are general tips for playing Dungeon Siege III and the Treasures of the Sun DLC. A list of all our Dungeon Siege III posts can be found here.

General Gameplay Tips

Combat

• Blocking
• There is a small Deed reward when you have blocked 100,000 points of damage.
• To do this, you might try blocking without Retribution on (so the enemy won't die), and periodically healing yourself when you recover a Power Orb from taking damage.
• You cannot move while Blocking.
• You do not need to face your opponent to block.
• Generally you will have to have good timing to block if you are going to exchange blows.
• Against non-bosses, it is generally better to focus on attacking since they are very briefly staggered by every hit and you can keep them unbalanced and not able to fight back.
• Against bosses, they hit too hard to block and you will lose too much Focus while still taking damage with every hit. It is probably better to dodge and use your Focus on Abilities.
• Retribution (damaging an enemy that hits you) and Warding (stunning an enemy that hits you) work while you are blocking.
• Dodging
• You do not pick up anything if you dodge past them.
• Dodging is generally better than blocking since it costs no Focus and you avoid an infinite amount of damage. Also, it moves you out of trouble instead of letting enemies converge and surround you. You can dodge in place if you are blocked by a barrier or an enemy. When you come out of dodge, however, typically an enemy will be able to hit you before you can act.
• Companions
• Your companion generally does very well against mobs but not bosses. It is probable that they block very well with computer-calculated timing, whereas you are generally lousy at blocking.
• They retreat / reposition only if you move quite far away from the battle.
• They won't pick up items, only gold.
• They don't pick up healing or focus orbs.
• If you level up while they are unconscious, they will revive because they level up with you, and at level up your Health and Focus are restored to full.
• Save Checkpoints
• There is usually a save point close to a boss. Use that to recover all your health. If you need Focus, wait for a random encounter to spawn and attack them for Focus. Save the game again, then head for the boss.
• Item Attributes
• Look at your play style and focus on increasing an attribute based on your play style. For example, if you use a lot of powers, get more Will. If you block a lot, increase your Block. The more you have of something, the more likely it is to trigger and be useful. Good ones to get are Warding (stuns enemy that attacks you), Vampirism, and Stamina (good in general, but if you rely on this too much you may be taking too many hits).
• For mobs and mini-bosses, Armor, Stunning, and Warding are all very good. Against bosses, however, these are more or less useless. Bosses will typically be able to hit so hard that unless you invest in Stamina, you can die in a single hit (on Hardcore). Also, major bosses (and some minor bosses) are immune to Stunning effects, since that would make it too easy.
• Pay attention to enemy auras and the tips on the load screens. For instance, purple auras drain your Focus.
• Hardcore Difficulty
• Blocking is useless. There is a huge emphasis on Stamina gear because otherwise bosses can kill you in 1 or 2 hits by the time you are almost done with the Raven's Rill area. Even with a lot of Stamina gear, you might only survive one additional hit at best. Once you reach Glitterdelve, the Azunite Assassins can hit for more damage than a boss.
• This is different if you have the Treasures of the Sun DLC installed. For example, we found the early bosses a bit easier, but the Palefang giant spider boss was impossible. For unclear reasons, Lucas Montbarron could inflict NO damage on it even though there was damage floaty-text. And the monsters scaled up quickly, so that the small white spiders that could do over 100 damage (each spider, per hit) against Lucas at level 7 could do about 50 more to Lucas at level 9.
• Probably the only thing HardCore is good for is getting the Deed for taking a total of 100,000 damage.

Shops

• Look for gold-tier unique items in shops as early as Raven's Rill. They are typically strong at the time you can buy them, but not necessarily the best depending on what you are aiming for in your character, and might still not be as good as a blue item.
• When you buy something, you can't immediately sell it back for the full price you bought it for. There's no "buyer's remorse" that is common in games.

Treasure

• Many barrels, tree stumps, and other destructible items respawn when you reload a game.
• Typically you can reload a game and re-open a chest to get a different drop. Chests do not respawn once looted. If you want to get a different drop, don't save your game. Just reload.
• Chests do not drop level-scaled loot, so opening a chest at a later level will not get you better loot.
• You will need a lot of money to enchant gear with the Treasures of the Sun DLC essences, and if you want to try HardCore (because you will need to adjust your gear to survive). For this reason, instead of grinding for gold, use the add_money console command.