Dragon’s Crown: Elf Tips

The Elf in Dragon’s Crown is a master archer who fights at close range if necessary, but prefers to put distance between herself and her opponents.  She is not an easy character to play, especially at lower levels, but once you get the hang of her play style and form a solid party, she can be quite devastating.

Read Prima’s Dragon’s Crown Beginner’s Tips for even more strategies.

Class Tips: Fighter, Elf, Sorceress, Dwarf, Wizard, Amazon

STATS BREAKDOWN

Strength: B

The Elf has a B ranking in strength, which is the lowest of the three melee classes. This is balanced with a B ranking in intelligence to help boost her magic attack damage. She can boost her attack power with the Deadly Boots skill, which adds the defense rating of her boots to her melee attacks. Because the Elf has a limited supply of arrows (especially at lower levels), you’ll have to move in for melee combat more often than you’d like. While her boots of wrath won’t strike fear into the hearts of her enemies, with the Deadly Boots skill, she can inflict a decent amount of damage.

Constitution: C

As a ranged warrior, the Elf doesn’t have high physical defense, which is clear when you discover her C ranking in constitution. She’s not meant to fight in close quarters, and no matter what kind of defensive gear you equip, she’ll never be able to take a beating. You should only close the distance towards an enemy when you need to retrieve arrows. In most cases, you should be as far away as possible, shooting arrows at the opposition.

Intelligence: B

There are melee classes and magic classes in Dragon’s Crown, but the Elf is a nice hybrid of the two. While her main weapon is the bow, she has the ability to use magic as well. Her intelligence ranking is a solid B, which means she can inflict a decent amount of damage with her magic-based attacks. She doesn’t have to charge MP like the Wizard and Sorceress, and although she doesn’t have the magic damage of those two classes, she can use her magic at will. In many cases, her magic is more damaging than her close-range kicking attacks.

Magic Resistance: C

Like the Elf’s physical defense (constitution), her magic defense isn’t very high. This is clearly seen in her magic resistance ranking. What this means is that you shouldn’t get hit often, because you won’t survive long if you do. However, the Elf is agile and has a solid dodge that covers a decent amount of distance with great speed. Pay close attention to any enemies in the area and evade their attacks to the best of your abilities. If you have trouble avoiding attacks, make sure you carry an ample supply of health potions.

Dexterity: A

Dexterity basically translates to how much damage you get from a character’s weapon. With a dexterity ranking of A, the Elf has a high probability of landing maximum damage with each arrow shot. This is good for her because she has a finite amount of arrows, so she needs to make every shot count before she has to close in on an enemy to replenish her supply.

Luck: A

With a high luck ranking, the Elf has a decently high probability to land a critical hit. When this happens, the damage from her attack is significantly increased. You may not notice the increased damage because she fires her arrows in rapid succession (even more so at higher levels), but any additional damage is good damage. Couple this with her high dexterity ranking, and she can really dish out the pain.

BASIC GAMEPLAY

At lower levels, you want to make sure you’re using all of your arrows before moving in. At the beginning of a battle, toss out a couple of magic attacks to keep the enemies at bay. The Elf’s elemental magic attack creates a pseudo-shield in front of her that will give her a little bit of time to back away to a safe distance. However, this magic attack is a little slow to initiate. If an enemy is close or closing in quickly, forego the magic attack and evade in the opposite direction to get some distance between you and the enemy.

Once you’re at a good range, let the arrows fly. Keep in mind a normal arrow shot hits relatively high on the screen. It can sometimes be difficult to hit smaller enemies (scorpions). In addition, because you have a limited supply of arrows and need to collect them after firing, do not wait too long before you move in to collect your arrows. They will disappear after a short time, and the weapon crates are few and far between in most dungeons. You don’t want to be caught without a few arrows.

It’s important to hold onto gear that helps you retain arrows and acquire skills that allow you to hold more arrows in your quiver. These assets help to make your arrows last longer in the heat of battle. They come in handy against bosses when you want to keep your distance at all costs. It’s also best to limit your usage of special arrows until you reach a boss. You have an extremely limited supply of fire and poison arrows (once you unlock these skills), so until you level skills high enough to have a good supply, save them for boss battles when they really come in handy.

When it comes to choosing party members, the Elf likes to keep her distance from opponents as long as she can. Party her with two solid melee classes and either a Wizard or Sorceress. With this party structure, the two melee classes will handle most of the close combat tactics and keep the enemies at bay. Meanwhile, the magic user will help you attack from a distance.

SKILL FOCUS

Deadly Boots

The Deadly Boots skill is extremely important at lower levels. You will run out of arrows quickly and your main form of attack will become your kicks. This skill increases the power of your kick attacks in conjunction with the defense rating of your boots. Because of this, make sure you always have boots with the highest possible defense. As you level up this skill, your melee attacks will inflict more damage until they are close to the other melee classes.

Spacious Quiver

This skill is fairly self-explanatory. The Elf’s main form of attack is her bow. You have a limited number of arrows, so the more arrows you carry the better. Increase this skill as often as possible so you always have the maximum number of arrows that your quiver can hold.

Rapid Fire

A single arrow only inflicts so much damage. With the Rapid Fire skill, you can fire a barrage of arrows that increase as you level up the skill. The more arrows you shoot, the more damage you inflict with a single attack. Of course, as you level up this skill, you’ll be using arrows at a much faster pace. If you’re having trouble maintaining a good supply of arrows, you may want to hold off on this skill until you’ve increased the Spacious Quiver skill.

Toxic Extract / Salamander Oil

The Elf’s specialty arrows inflict more damage than her normal arrows, but are much more limited. As you increase the level of these skills, you’ll have more specialty arrows to shoot. It’s best to keep these two specialty arrows in your inventory bag so you can switch between them at will. Poison arrows (Toxic Extract) work very well against enemies with a lot of HP, such as bosses. Fire arrows (Salamander Oil) work well to take out enemies in a single shot, or to inflict big damage on bosses. It’s best to alternate between the two when fighting bosses. Use a single poison arrow, then switch to fire arrows until the poison wears off, then hit the boss with another poison shot and repeat the process.

Note: The Impact Arrow, Clone Strike and Power Shot skills also give you alternate arrows, but are generally not as effective as the Toxic Extract and Salamander Oil skills. Only level the other skills up once these two are at their maximum level.

Elemental Lore

Raising your Elemental Lore skill is more important at lower levels when you don’t have a good supply of arrows. In many cases, especially early on, the Elf’s magic is more damaging than her kick attacks. It’s slower to execute, so you’ll have to be somewhat careful when using it, but it does a good job of keeping enemies away from the Elf and absorbing certain enemy attacks. As you increase the level of this skill, it inflicts more damage, making it a good alternate asset to your arrows.

Backstab

Once you max out the Backstab skill, the Elf can inflict a ton of damage. However, it not only requires the Elf to be close to an enemy, but also behind it. This is a direct contradiction to how the Elf should generally be played. However, if you’ve already maxed out the Spacious Quiver skill, this isn’t a bad supplemental attack once you’re out of arrows. This skill goes hand-in-hand with the Holdout Dagger skill to ensure you always have a weapon ready.