Grim Tides Strategy Guide, Tips & Tricks

Welcome to Port Farhaven, a city run by crime and corruption. You are a lowly prisoner who is given one more chance at freedom, but only if you can manage to complete a special assignment. What lengths will you go to for freedom?

Grim Tides is a turn-based dungeon crawling RPG that is heavily inspired by old-school computer RPGs. If you are a diehard fan of the classics, there is a lot to love about Grim Tides. The game can also be pretty challenging, so if you are just starting out, we have some tips and tricks for you in our Grime Tides strategy guide.

Tips and tricks to conquering Grim Tides‘ dungeons

Grim Tides is an approachable game with lots of ways to customize the experience. If this is your first time adventuring through the lands of Grim Tides, there is a lot to take in at first, so we will walk you through all the important beats.

Building your perfect character

When you are creating your character in Grim Tides, you get to choose their background, starting stats, and perks. It is usually a good idea to stick to a central theme for your character—for example, a melee defensive warrior or a spell-slinging mage, and then pick the appropriate perks and stats.

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Grim Tides gives you the flexibility to create just about any kind of character you want, and since you are going to come across all sorts of different enemies, you need to make sure you are prepared for all possible scenarios.

A good starting build is to use a mix of spells and skills. You will come across enemies that are resistant to physical or magic attacks, so you need to be able to retaliate with their weaknesses. Build your character however you like, but just keep this in mind.

Try out different skills and spells

Once you are more comfortable with the game’s core mechanics, you can start messing around with different builds, skills, and stats. Your character starts the game with no skills or spells learned, so you have to go into the Battle Academy to study up.

Spells are elemental magic that can do a variety of things like damage enemies, buff you, or even heal you. Skills are weapon abilities that can damage enemies and debuff them. While spells have no limitations, skills are attached to weapons, and you must be equipped with the matching weapon in order to use skills. For example, if you learn a slashing skill, you can only use it if you have a slashing weapon equipped.

You must spend gold in order to learn new spells and skills, and you can only know so many at any given time. Your maximum spell and skill slots increase as you gain levels, but do not worry about being locked to your initial choices; you can always pay a small gold fee to free up a slot, so we encourage you to try out different abilities to see what strategies you can come up with.

Can’t decide on which spells to take? Here is a quick breakdown of them, and remember that you do not have to get the previous spell in a tree—you can jump around anywhere you wish, as long as you have the gold.

• Elemental: Balanced form of offensive and defensive magic.
• Aether: Focuses on dealing magic damage and reducing enemy S.RES (spell resistance), increasing the damage they take from all forms of magic.
• Nature: Focuses on disabling and poisoning enemies while buffing yourself.
• Order: Support magic that focuses on buffs and healing.
• Chaos: Focuses on dealing magic damage and inflicts all sorts of debuffs upon foes.

Now, let’s go over the skills. Remember that you can only use the skills that match your equipped weapon!

• Slashing: Focuses mainly on dealing direct damage to enemies. Can also mute and bleed enemies.
• Crushing: Defensive skill set that focuses on stunning enemies while increasing your own defenses.
• Hacking: Relentless attacks that are all about landing critical hits.
• Stabbing: A tricky skill set that can poison enemies and reduce their ARM (armor), while buffing yourself with increased CRIT DMG and EVA (evasion).
• Arcane: Focuses on increasing spell effectiveness. This skill set should always be taken if you plan on using lots of spells. This is the only skill set that does not require a specific weapon type.

Prepare yourself for dungeon crawling

Before you set out on an adventure, it is very important to check all your equipment and items and make sure everything is in order. Make sure to:

• Have at least one healing item or spell—the more, the better. Almost all the spell trees have at least one healing spell in them, and we highly recommend you take one of them.
• Have the proper weapon equipped for your chosen skill set.
• Refill your Rations and MORALE at The Salty Rat.

Last, but certainly not least, make sure to accept some bounties from The Salty Rat. Bounties are essentially quests, as they make you take down certain enemies or craft items. Bounties are a great way to earn bonus experience and gold, so complete as many of them as you can.

Surviving the dungeons

Dungeons play out in randomly generated tile sets. Tap on any adjacent tile to explore it, and your overall objective is to find the key and unlock the door to the next level of the dungeon.

As you explore darkened tiles, they light up and reveal enemies, loot, and key items. Try not to double back and explore tiles that you have already seen, as you still consume supplies, but without the healing effect. Only unexplored tiles heal you with supplies.

During the battle, be sure to tap on enemy portraits for a reminder of what their weaknesses are. If you have defeated that type of enemy at least once, you can bring up their info panel at any point. Knowing whether to use weapons or magic attacks can give you a big advantage in battle.

Don’t worry about conserving your spells and skills. They all have limited uses per battle, but they recharge after the battle is over. They are the key to survival, so go nuts with them.

If things start to go south, remember that you can always go back to the starting tile to escape the dungeon. Doing this costs you some gold, but depending on your difficulty, it may be better than biting the dust.

Prepare yourself for the next adventure

You automatically return to Port Farhaven after completing a dungeon level, so you can take a break in between levels. You pick up right where you left off when you go back into the dungeon, so no need to worry about lost progress.

Before you resume dungeon delving, recheck your supplies. Restock on items, learn new spells and turn in any bounties you may have completed. Also, remember to collect your wages from the town office—you can do this every time you leave a dungeon.

This is a good time to check out the other shops in Farhaven. The Black Anvil can strengthen your gear, and Grave Concoctions can help you craft new items using materials you find in the dungeons.

As you conquer more and more levels of the dungeons, you naturally complete more of Grim Tides’ main story quest. If you ever need a refresher on what to do next, take a look at your journal for more detailed steps. The journey to your freedom from Port Farhaven will be a long one, so we wish you luck.