If you have just finished the first few ruptures in Dwarven Realms, chances are you already noticed that the game does not explain much. There are monograms, imbued runes, time tears, Elven keys, fortune tokens and half a dozen forges, and most of the useful information is buried somewhere in the Discord.
This guide walks you through the whole progression, from the campaign to the Dark bosses in the Underrealm, and answers the questions new players keep asking.
Mind that Dwarven Realms is an Early Access game with seasons. At the time of writing, the current season is Season 6: Elemental Reckoning (it started on June 26, 2026, with a mid-season reset in early July), and systems (drop levels, monograms, offhand balance, etc.) can change from one season to the next. As such, treat exact numbers as a snapshot of the current season rather than something set in stone.
You can find the game and the current season info on the official site.
This guide is built on progression notes from the Dwarven Realms Discord, above all Konmura’s progression guide and Stitch’s drop list, with extra tips from Exorzon, and cross-checked against the official patch notes. Thanks to all three.
What unlocks when
A lot of the early confusion comes from not knowing when things start dropping. The table below puts the important milestones in one place. The levels are rupture levels (R) unless it says otherwise, and a question mark means the community itself is not fully sure.
| Level | What opens up |
|---|---|
| Character level 5 | Weapon masteries |
| R10 to R15 (roughly) | Banshee starts showing up |
| R11 | You can upgrade offhands to purple |
| R15 | Prime elites, special time tears (slug, elite, forge, rock) |
| R18 (boss killed) | First home fort portal upgrade (you advance 2 ruptures per clear instead of 1) |
| R30 (boss killed) | Second home fort portal upgrade |
| R31 | Shadow chests |
| R38 | Grave Digger’s Cove recipe |
| R40 | Eggs, Elven reputation NPC |
| R45 | Elysia recipe |
| R50 | Elven fragments |
| Character level 60 | Pets |
| R65 infused / R80 normal | Underrealm shards (infused ruptures from R65, containers from R80) |
| R75 | Zone scrolls, Underrealm recipe |
| Around R80? | Harmonian Olympus |
| R100 | Bridge of the Demigods |
| Around R125? | Archeon’s Cathedral |
| R150 | Zul unlocks (per the Season 4 patch notes) |
| R165 | Skorch unlocks (per the Season 4 patch notes) |
| R170+ | Skorch keys start dropping from boss chests |
| R200 | Skorch key crafting (according to Konmura), Dark Drythus in the Underrealm |
| R220 | Dark Olympus |
| R240 | Dark Bridge |
Two things to keep in mind about this table. Season 6 redesigned Ruptures 1 to 15, so the earliest entries may have shifted a little bit. And on Skorch keys, the official patch notes say they start dropping after R170, while Konmura says clearing R200 lets you craft them. Both can be true (a drop first, a recipe later), but double-check it in your own game.
For reference, veterans have long said that rupture health goes up in steps of ten, so R100 and R109 are roughly the same fight (the higher one just hits a bit harder). Mind that Season 5.75 and Season 6 both reworked enemy health, so treat this as a rule of thumb.
Campaign and leveling tips
Before anything else, make sure to keep one low item level piece for each of these slots: helm, pants, boots, amulet, bracer, rings and relic. Any rarity works except purple.
You will want these later as cheap bases for your first farming monograms, and since crafting costs scale with item level, putting those monograms onto the lowest item level pieces you can find saves a fair amount of material at a point where you do not have much of it.
The first ruptures
Weapon masteries only become available at character level 5, so it is worth staying in R1 until you get there. While you wait, open every container you see. They’re free.
A small trick for the early fights: you do not have to sit through your offhand cooldown. Trigger one goblet, swap to a different one (it has to be a different skill), trigger that, and keep rotating.
Once you hit level 5, kill the R1 boss and equip the sword from its chest. Better damage.
In R2, Konmura levels sword mastery to 420 for a chunk of flat HP, max HP% and energy regen, which is a lot at this stage. Mastery 100 gives you Magical Slash along the way. Mind that the official site lists the bonuses a little bit differently (flat HP at mastery 100, the percentage bonuses at 4320), so check the tooltip in your game.
For the boss, alternate Magical Slash and auto attacks, keep swapping offhands, and drink health potions when you run dry, because potions restore energy too. Usually you can fit about three Magical Slashes between potions.
How long to stay in each rupture
Don’t hang around. During the campaign you only stay in a rupture as long as it takes to open the boss room, then you kill the boss and move on to the next one, because the real farming comes much later and every minute spent clearing trash in R5 is a minute you could have spent in a rupture that actually drops something useful.
Weapon rack and portal upgrades
For the weapon rack, Konmura recommends Spears, as they give you access to Corrupted Spear very early and it is a strong skill. More on the tree in the builds section further down.
The next target is R18. After you kill that boss, upgrade the portal in your home fort so each clear moves you up two rupture levels instead of one. Do the same after the R30 boss. From there, keep going until R36, which is roughly where the early game starts.
420 or 4320 on weapon masteries?
You will see two numbers thrown around. 420 is the early breakpoint Konmura aims for during the campaign.
The bigger goal is getting every weapon stance to 4320. The Health, Energy and Boss Damage bonuses from 4320 stack across stances, while the mastery levels themselves do not. Each stance upgrade gives you a bit of flat HP plus percentage bonuses to max HP, energy regen and more, and you keep them even when you play a different weapon. Some players only find this out after several seasons, so it is worth knowing early. That being said, 4320 on everything takes a while, so treat it as an early-game goal and not something to finish before R36.
If you ever need to AFK, R3 is the spot for passive stance mastery gains. Otherwise R39, R79 and so on are better, since you get real drops on top.
Early game: farming setup, belts and the Elven tree
The first thing to do in the early game is push to R40, because that is where the Elven reputation NPC becomes available and you will be feeding it materials for the rest of the season. After that, drop back down and farm R37 to R39 until you feel strong enough to go higher.
At this point you have every zone available (not the dungeons), and it is time to build your farming monograms.
Getting your first monograms
Monograms are bought at the monogram statue, and any of them costs one Imbued Dwarven Rune. To get those, stay the full timer in your rupture (until about a minute is left) and use the essence exchange at the end to target Dwarven Runes, which you then convert into Imbued ones. You can also turn maps into Dwarven Runes at the Alchemical Cauldron.
The zone? It barely matters here.
The first monogram to chase is the chance to spawn another elite when you kill an elite. A reasonable order:
- Amulet and bracers
- Helm and boots
- Pants, but with the 10% chance to get a container on elite kill instead
Both the elite respawn and the container chance can go on any of those five slots, so feel free to shuffle them around. Put them on the low item level pieces you saved, upgrade them to yellow with four stats, and do not worry about which stats. Nothing on these pieces matters except the monogram.
For reference, the community treats roughly 10% elite spawn per piece as the normal value, and 40% elite spawn plus 10% container chance is the standard early farming setup for general farming (Stitch says he uses nothing but elite spawn chance for his first 100 ruptures). Mind that elite spawn stacks up to 4 times (40%) since an October 2025 patch, so 40% is the cap.
After the farming pieces, get these:
- Relic: 100 armor per potion (and take the potion nodes in the skill tree). This cuts your damage taken quite a bit.
- Ring: 15 physical damage per 150 stats, for pushing
- Ring: 1% maximum HP per 50 stat, for farming
Where to get belts
Belts come from three places, and you will probably see all three before long:
- Campaign bosses
- Most dungeons, including the boss dungeons you open with Imbued Dwarven Runes such as Min Lodhur and Harmonian Olympus (Grave Digger’s Cove and the Catacombs are the easiest)
- Ancient Dwarven chests
The practical way to farm belts is the Ancient Dwarven chest route. Convert your Dwarven Runes into Imbued Dwarven Runes and then into Ancient Dwarven keys. With a key active, every elite has a chance to drop an Ancient Dwarven chest, and each chest holds three belts (one per element), plus fortune tokens, Catacombs keys and some other bits.
Once you have the belt you want, try to hold back at least 15 Imbued Dwarven Runes for later instead of spending everything on chests.
Why Ancient Dwarven chests matter
Belts are only part of it. These chests are one of the better sources of legendary stones, which you use to upgrade offhands, craft large gems (they give more XP) and swap monograms. The amount scales with rupture level.
They also drop Catacombs keys. As such, you can convert the Catacombs resources back into Dwarven Runes, which pays for part of the keys you spent.
Grave Digger’s Cove and Kordrim
Grave Digger’s Cove opens at R38. You kill bugs there for stones that feed your fossil, which is the best early way to scale your damage. The dungeon also has two Imbued Dwarven Runes and monogram statues inside, and it is packed with containers, which speeds up your way toward Elysia.
Run it with your 40% elite spawn gear and whatever container chance you have, because both noticeably increase what comes out of it.
Around this point, do two Grave Digger’s Cove runs with your farming gear to get the small gems that enable the Kordrim option (one run usually comes from dailies, and you will probably get another from farming). Kordrim the Explorer is the NPC in your home fort who takes your keys (Tomb of Fortune, Catacombs, Grave Digger’s Cove and the Elven Capital) and fetches the loot for you in seconds. According to Exorzon, sending him to the Catacombs or the Elven Capital gives you the same loot as running them yourself, while Grave Digger’s Cove is better done by hand with your elite spawn gear. The developers have adjusted his Cove rewards since, so this may have changed.
Best farming ruptures
Not every level is equal. The community farms at a few specific spots, mostly just below the level where a new drop type kicks in or right at the point where something better starts dropping:
| Rupture | Why farm it |
|---|---|
| R3 | AFK stance mastery only |
| R39 | No eggs yet, but the most drops for everything else. Good for early Grave Digger’s Cove grinding. |
| R79 | No Underrealm containers yet, but you get zone scrolls for the Bridge key |
| R119 | Best point to start collecting Elven fragments, which beat scrolls for the Elven Capital |
In the early game you will mostly sit between R39 and R79. Use the essence exchange to go after shadow chests, as they are your main damage scaling for quite a while.
Once you farm R79, widen the target. Take whichever comes up first among shadow chests, scrolls and Elven fragments.
Time tears and the Elven tree
Trade your materials to the Elven reputation NPC and spend them in this order:
- Go left for the time tear cooldown/chance nodes (up to 50)
- Go up from the middle to the slug tear chance node (“time for slugs”)
- Go right for the elite rush time tears
- Backtrack to the container chance node (middle right)
Both community guides land on this same order, although they call it personal preference. Going the other way around works too.
Later, when you are at R119 and above and farming Elven fragments, switch to the digging deeper node. Grab the three nodes above, left and right of the start, then take the cheapest route down to it. It boosts the Elven Capital, which is your best fossil scaling in the mid and late game.
Cards
While you farm, collect cards. In the early game, flat damage cards and HP% cards come first. If nothing better shows up, elemental or flat HP cards are fine fillers.
Later in the mid game, use the free reset to reroll your cards and focus on stat and stat%, HP% and boss damage.
Catacombs
Once you can clear R59, you can run the Catacombs. Before you go in, take off your elite respawn gear. Seriously, do not forget this one.
The goal is a weapon of item level 20 or higher to put your offhand monogram on.
While you are at it, check orange gear for pushing monograms. More on those in the gear section.
Pushing to R100 and the Bridge of the Demigods
Zone scrolls start dropping once you can farm R75 and up. Collect a few in every zone, because you need them (plus a clear of R100) to craft the Bridge of the Demigods key.
For an easy Bridge fight, the recommendation is being able to clear R115 or having around 10M DPS.
Before you try, swap to your pushing monograms and take the Bloodlust nodes in the tree (the crit damage% ones). Then push.
After the push, run the Catacombs a few more times. Kill every slug. Look for:
- A weapon with double base damage (for your offhand monogram)
- Purple chest and gloves with energy regen
- The stat you are stacking on those same pieces, if you are lucky
If the double base damage weapon does not show up after a couple of runs, take whatever weapon you have and put the offhand monogram on it anyway. Catacombs gear with cooldown%, elemental% or offhand% is worth a look too, but only if you have enough legendary glowing stones to move monograms around (1K per swap).
Then kill the Bridge boss. Early game done.
Mid game: Archeon, Elven keys and the road to Zul
The mid game is a grind, and the core loop changes a little bit. Start running infused ruptures at 79+ with fortune tokens and pick double essence, double tears or double containers as modifiers.
At the essence exchange, split your focus between scrolls, shadow chests and Elven fragments, and take whichever comes first when you reroll.
Two routes
Two options.
The first is farming Bridge and Archeon’s Cathedral runs and gambling on double monogram gear. You get Archeon entries from Bridge materials (five bloods per Archeon run). The downside is that it eats a lot of Imbued Dwarven Runes that you then cannot spend on Ancient Dwarven chests.
The second is steadier, and it is the one Konmura recommends. You farm only the HHK zones (Hinterland, Harmonian, Kabarian) and trade the scrolls for Elven keys (also called ambassador’s keys) at the Catacombs NPC, while still going after shadow chests and Elven fragments. Mind the R119 switch point mentioned earlier. Before R119, trade the extra HHK scrolls for Elven keys. After R119, Elven fragments give you more on average than scrolls.
If you do run Bridge and Archeon, these are the monograms worth looking for on the first few drops:
- Helmet: Bloodlust, HP per mastery (if you use spears), or elemental per crit chance
- Chest and gloves: stance + stats (these become your forging pieces after Zul)
- Pants: stance + stats for pushing, double farming monograms, or crit chance per essence
- Boots: stance + stats, double farming monograms, crit chance per 50 stat, or movement speed per potion
- Amulet: Bloodlust lifestacks plus dark essence or potions, or double farming monograms
- Bracers: stance + stats, crit chance per energy regen, base damage per max HP, secondary per 100 stats, a double mix of these, or double farming monograms
- Rings: stance + stats with 15 damage per 150, Bloodlust lifestacks, max HP% per elemental, or a double mix
- Relic: stance + stats, or offhands can crit at 10% of your crit chance
For farming pieces, double monograms let you go up to 40% respawn and up to 100% container chance.
When you are ready for Archeon
The benchmark is roughly 7K HP for melee (with damage reduction capped from armor) or 9K HP for ranged, plus being able to clear R140 or having about 100M DPS. At that point one or two Archeon runs are probably fine.
Mind that DPS figures move a lot between seasons (Season 6 changed the damage formula and cut enemy health across the game, and the official site quotes much higher numbers). The rupture level you can clear is the more reliable benchmark, so go by that.
Around here it also makes sense to grab some crafting cost nodes in the Elven tree. Then craft a batch of Catacombs items. Look for cooldown% at minimum, plus anything else that helps you (offhand%, elemental%, stance crit damage%, energy regen, lifesteal chance or bonus).
Getting to Zul
The last mid-game milestone is collecting around 100 Elven keys, since the Elven Capital is where your Zul keys come from. By the time you have that many, your damage should be there too.
For Zul, you want to clear R165 or have 3B to 5B DPS with most offhands. There is no HP requirement. You simply should not get hit.
Zul matters because it drops the dust for the Hell Forge, and according to Stitch the Hell Forge accounts for roughly 99% of your stats in the late game, which is why everything after Zul revolves around farming dust, Elven keys and fragments, and good purple bases to forge onto.
Mid-game monograms
By the time you face Zul, your main setup usually looks something like this:
| Slot | Main setup | Zul-only alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Helm | Bloodlust (or flat HP per mastery with spears), or elemental per crit chance | Base damage per max energy |
| Chest | Stance + stats | Stance + stats |
| Gloves | Stance + stats | Stance + stats |
| Pants | Stance + stats, or crit per essence | Stance + stats |
| Boots | Stance + stats, crit per 50 stat, or movement speed per potion | Max energy per potion |
| Amulet | Bloodlust lifestacks, or dark essence | Potion per stats |
| Bracers | Base damage per max HP (at 100% crit chance), or crit chance per energy regen (if crit is not capped or you use a crit relic) | Archeon bracers with stance + stats + flat damage, secondary damage per stat, or crit chance per energy regen |
| Rings | Lifestacks (with base damage per max HP bracers), or HP% per element (with dark essence) | Max energy per stats |
| Relic | Stance + stat, or offhands can crit | Max energy |
The Zul-only setup can be a little more damage than the main one, depending on your gear. Not a must.
Late game: forging, lifesteal and the Underrealm
After Zul, the loop becomes fairly simple. Keep farming higher ruptures, keep collecting Elven keys and fragments, and forge your gear with Forger Dust (players call it Zul dust) more or less forever.
Hell Forge and Celestial Forge
The Hell Forge moves stats from a non-purple item onto a purple one. Swordie made a video on the forge mechanics that explains the process better than text can. A few things the video will not necessarily spell out:
- Stats have no diminishing returns on items, so there is no reason to spread them across all your gear.
- Items do not have an affix limit. If you had the materials, one piece could carry every affix in the game.
- Put all your Hell Forge work on either the chest or the gloves. Konmura’s approach is to use the chest or gloves with stance + stats that you got from Bridge or Archeon, since you keep that piece for a long time. Some other veterans say to never forge onto any monogram piece at all.
- Either way, do not forge onto the monogram pieces you still plan to replace (helmet, amulet, bracers, etc.), as you swap those far too often.
- The Hell Forge cannot be made more deterministic. It is random.
The other slot (whichever of chest or gloves you did not Hell Forge) goes into the Celestial Forge later. That one uses Celestial Dust (players farm it from Skorch) and works on yellow and red items (red shows up as orange or brown depending on your eyes).
For the Celestial Forge, look for an item level 80 to 100 base that has stat, stat% and one more useful affix. Reroll the affixes until they land at double their usual value (Season 5.5 added a direct affix reroll, which replaced the old trick of altering an item back and forth), and only then push the flat stat up. Starting on an item level 40 base is not really worth it, since better bases come easily from Dark Olympus later.
Mind that most players collect several hundred to a few thousand specks over a season.
What to forge
Aim for cooldown%, offhand%, stat, stat% and elemental%. On top of that, forge lifesteal chance up to 100% and lifesteal bonus up to around 50% (more is better, of course).
That is also why it pays to save items with lifesteal chance% and two other good mods before you reach the Hell Forge.
Stats: Luck or Wisdom
Stitch’s advice is full Luck until after Zul, and Wisdom after that if you like. Luck boosts elemental (offhand) damage, so it fits offhand-focused builds. Whether it still holds for a mostly physical build after the Season 6 damage split is not clear yet.
The Underrealm
The Underrealm recipe opens at R75. The zone has a loot bonus (Stitch puts it at 10 to 20% increased container scaling, Exorzon at a 20% loot multiplier), a bonus boss drop shown in the zone tooltip, and it drops six scrolls instead of five. The boss gate needs 100 essence (down from 500 since an April 2026 patch), and opening it no longer uses the essence up.
Underrealm shards start dropping at R65 in infused ruptures and at R80 from containers.
The Underrealm is also where you gamble your gold from Elysia (R45). Useful things to buy include Elven Capital and Grave Digger’s Cove keys, energy regen, stance fragments and Imbued Dwarven Runes. Elysia also drops Elysia’s scales for your dragon pet, so pick a pet that has your main element and a good secondary one.
R200 and Skorch keys
The next goal after Zul is clearing R200. That opens Skorch key crafting, and Skorch runs are your chance at a weapon that rolls three offhand monograms.
Mind the Dwarven King here too. He shows up after you defeat Zul, Skorch and Dark Skorch, and after every 10 boss kills he lets you forge a custom weapon (you choose the weapon type and the offhand). Since Season 5.75, Zul gives you 2 random monograms for your chosen offhand, while Skorch and Dark Skorch give you the same random monogram three times.
R200 is also where the Dark bosses start. You fight each boss variant in the Underrealm to open its Dark version, and each Dark run has a hefty gold entry fee.
Dark boss order and benchmarks
| Boss | Rupture | Ready when | What to look for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dark Drythus | R200 | 150K HP, 50 to 100% lifesteal chance, 20 to 50% lifesteal bonus, can clear R229 | Double or triple farming monograms, stance + double stats for pushing |
| Dark Olympus | R220 | No benchmark given | Chest or gloves (not your forge piece) with stance + double stats |
| Dark Bridge | R240 | Can clear R269 | Double or triple farming helmet with Bloodlust, relic with stance + double stats plus flat armor and flat HP per potion |
Dark Drythus comes first and is probably the most dangerous of the Dark bosses, so do not rush it. Also, do not burn all your gold there trying for triple monograms. Stop once you have double farming monograms on both pieces.
Dark Olympus is optional. Konmura usually skips it, because bad luck can make it very expensive in gold.
After Dark Bridge, the pattern repeats: get double farming gear from each boss before you move on to the next one. Once you reach Dark Skorch, Konmura considers the game beaten. What is left is hunting triple monograms and min-maxing.
Gear and monograms: farming set vs pushing set
You will almost always run two sets. One is built to make farming faster, the other to push rupture levels. It is worth keeping both instead of trying to find one set that does everything.
| Stage | Farming set | Pushing set |
|---|---|---|
| Early game | 40% elite spawn, 10% container chance (helm, amulet, bracers, boots for elites, pants for containers), 1% max HP per 50 stat ring | Bloodlust helm, HP% per potion or movement speed per potion boots, Bloodlust lifestack amulet, crit chance per energy regen bracer, one lifestack ring, one 15 physical per 150 stat ring, 100 armor per potion relic |
| Mid game | 40% elite spawn, 20 to 40% container chance | Stance + stats pieces, see the mid-game monogram table |
| Late game | 40% elite, 100% containers (triple monograms) | Triple monogram pieces from the Dark bosses |
In the late game, you can give up some container chance for a 30% amadora snail (more essence) or for a monogram that helps you farm higher ruptures (elemental damage from crit chance, for example).
A veteran’s push setup (from an earlier season)
For comparison, here is the push gear Stitch shared on the Discord in an earlier season. It leans on crit and dark essence:
- Helmet: elemental damage per crit chance over 100%
- Amulet: dark essence when hitting an elite or boss
- Bracers: crit chance per energy regen
- Boots: crit chance per 50 stat
- Pants: crit chance per essence
- Rings: damage per essence (swap one for max HP% per elemental damage if you struggle to survive)
Mind that Seasons 5.5 and 6 changed the values on several of these monograms (and merged the fire, arcane and lightning versions into one elemental monogram), so check the current numbers in game.
Bloodlust
The spear stance gives you Bloodlust on its own (it is part of the Spear Proficiency). If you play any other weapon, the only way to get it is through monograms. There was a bug at some point that let you keep the spear ability with other weapons, but that is not the intended way.
Beyond that, Bloodlust shows up in two places. There are Bloodlust monograms (on helmets, and as Bloodlust lifestacks on amulets and rings) and there are Bloodlust nodes in the skill tree (the crit damage% ones). The sources recommend taking the tree nodes when you switch to pushing gear, and a Bloodlust helm plus lifestack amulet is the standard pushing start.
Later on, you combine Bloodlust with a second monogram on the same piece (Bloodlust + elemental per crit chance if you use dark essence, Bloodlust + HP per mastery with spears, etc.).
The relic slot
The relic is weak. Early on, 100 armor per potion is the pick for damage reduction. Once your damage reduction is maxed, HP from potions is better. Otherwise, gold per kill or anything with stats + stance works.
Crafting priorities
When you craft gear, look for these affixes in order:
- Cooldown reduction (until somewhere between 70% and 150%)
- Elemental% or offhand%
- Any third affix that helps your build
Also, rerolling an affix to double its value is usually worth more than upgrading the item.
How damage works
Understanding the damage formulas helps a lot when you compare two items. There are two, one for physical damage and one for elemental (offhand) damage.
Physical damage:
Base Physical Damage x (Stance Crit Damage + Crit Damage + Physical Damage Bonus + Stance Damage Bonus) x Primary or Secondary Multiplier x Boss Damage
Elemental damage:
Base Elemental Damage x (Offhand Damage Bonus + Base Offhand Multiplier + Affinity Damage Bonus) x Fire/Arcane/Lightning Damage x Boss Damage x Offhand Modifiers Damage
What this means in practice
Everything inside the brackets is added together first, and only that sum multiplies your damage, while everything outside the brackets (Boss Damage, the primary or secondary multiplier, your element% and the offhand modifiers) multiplies the result on its own. That difference matters a lot.
As such, a stat inside the brackets gets weaker the more of the other bracket stats you already have, since you are only adding to a sum that keeps growing. A stat outside the brackets is not diluted by the bracket, but mind that each outside term is also a sum of its own sources, so it loses relative value as you stack more of the same thing.
That is why Boss Damage is valuable. It is its own multiplier in both formulas and it applies to both damage types. Two catches, though: it only does anything against bosses, and it adds to the Boss Damage you already have (for example from weapon masteries). For reference, +10% on top of an existing +80% is only about 5.6% more damage. The same logic applies to Fire/Arcane/Lightning damage% on the elemental side, which is its own multiplier and not just another entry in a sum with offhand damage bonus.
You might also read older Discord advice that regular Crit Damage is underwhelming while Stance Crit Damage is not. That was true in Season 4, when Stance Crit Damage worked as a separate multiplier. In the Season 6 formula, both sit in the same bracket, so on paper they are now worth the same. Treat the old advice with some caution.
In general, when you choose between two items, first check whether a stat is part of a bracket you already stack heavily. If it is, a separate multiplier like your element% (or Boss Damage, if you are pushing a boss) is probably the better pick. The quick way to compare: adding X% to a term you already have at Y% gives you (1 + X + Y) / (1 + Y) times the damage.
Races and affinities: which race is best?
There are four races in Dwarven Realms (Human, Orc, Graveborn and Dwarf), and the choice matters a little bit more than it looks at character creation. Each race gives you a mastery bonus for two weapon types and boosts three offhand affinities.
| Race | Weapon mastery | Affinities |
|---|---|---|
| Human | Spear, Bow | Hazard, Momentum, Sky |
| Orc | Axes, Fist | Explosion, Totem, Dragon |
| Graveborn | Sword, Scythe | Projectile, Orbit, Ground |
| Dwarf | Magery, Maul | Blade, Area, Creature |
In the community sheet, every offhand has three base affinity tags (some offhand mods add more). The more of those tags your race covers, the more your race helps that offhand. Race is one source of the Affinity Damage Bonus from the damage formula above, alongside the affinity nodes in the skill tree. As such, the simple rule is to pick the race that shares two tags with the offhand you want to play. If no race gets two, any of the races that share one tag works.
The table below comes from a community spreadsheet and keeps its offhand names (the game spells a few differently, e.g. Delusion of Zelkors and Fiery Totems). It was made before Season 6, but as far as we know the affinities did not change.
| Offhand | Affinity tags | Best race |
|---|---|---|
| Lightning Totem | Explosion, Totem, Area | Orc |
| Electric Dragons | Dragon, Orbit, Area | Orc / Graveborn / Dwarf |
| Lightning Plasma | Momentum, Projectile, Area | Human / Graveborn / Dwarf |
| Eye of the Storm | Hazard, Sky, Area | Human |
| Spark | Momentum, Sky, Explosion | Human |
| Static Charge | Momentum, Sky, Ground | Human |
| Vortex | Hazard, Sky, Area | Human |
| Ferocity of Wolves | Momentum, Ground, Creature | Human / Graveborn / Dwarf |
| Star Blades | Momentum, Sky, Blade | Human |
| Chain Lightning | Momentum, Sky, Area | Human |
| Rain of Flames | Hazard, Sky, Explosion | Human |
| Fire Beam | Hazard, Momentum, Projectile | Human |
| Dragon Flame | Dragon, Area, Creature | Dwarf |
| Delusions of Zelkor | Explosion, Ground, Creature | Orc / Graveborn / Dwarf |
| Fire Orb | Explosion, Ground, Area | Orc / Graveborn / Dwarf |
| Carnage of Fire | Sky, Explosion, Ground | Human / Orc / Graveborn |
| Fire Totem | Hazard, Explosion, Totem | Orc |
| Burning Shield | Explosion, Orbit, Blade | Orc / Graveborn / Dwarf |
| Arcane Orb | Momentum, Explosion, Projectile | Human / Orc / Graveborn |
| Arcane Apocalypse | Hazard, Explosion, Ground | Human / Orc / Graveborn |
| Toxicity | Hazard, Projectile, Ground | Graveborn |
| Blood Dragons | Explosion, Dragon, Ground | Orc |
| Arcane Totem | Explosion, Totem, Ground | Orc |
| Kraken Seed | Projectile, Ground, Creature | Graveborn |
| Death Blades | Hazard, Ground, Blade | Human / Graveborn / Dwarf |
| Spinning Blades | Projectile, Orbit, Blade | Graveborn |
A few patterns stand out. Human covers most of the lightning offhands with Sky (Spark, Static Charge, Vortex, Chain Lightning, Eye of the Storm), plus Star Blades, Rain of Flames and Fire Beam. Orc is the totem race (Lightning Totem, Fire Totem, Arcane Totem) and also fits Blood Dragons. Graveborn suits Toxicity, Kraken Seed and Spinning Blades, and Dwarf is the only clear pick for Dragon Flame.
Mind that race is a fairly small part of your total damage compared to gear, monograms and offhand upgrades. If you are still not sure which offhand you will end up with, Human is a safe choice, since it is the single best race for 8 of the 26 offhands in the sheet, more than any other race.
For reference, I tend to play Human with arcane offhands (Arcane Orb and Arcane Apocalypse). Mind that for those two, Human only matches one tag, the same as Orc and Graveborn, so the race is not what makes them strong. It simply leaves the door open to the Sky lightning offhands if I want to switch later.
Best offhand for beginners
In the campaign, pick whatever offhand has high base damage or good mechanics. Arcane Orb, Zelkor, Vortex, Static Charge and Lightning Plasma are all solid early picks. You will change offhands soon anyway, so do not spend too much time on this.
From R11 you can upgrade offhands to purple and choose their mods. If you already have the offhands you plan to keep, upgrade them there. Disenchanting purple items and the spare offhands you collected on the way should give you enough materials. If you are going for a lightning offhand, pick lightning offhands at the weapon rack at the end of each rupture.
Community offhand sheet
There is a community spreadsheet that ranked offhands by relative damage, depending on how many mods have a full affinity stack (from seven down to one). It was made for version 1.4.1 (the author was not sure about the season), last updated on 28 June 2026, and the author said there would be no more updates. The author also noted that the in-game math does not fully add up without looking at the code. Mind that the sheet was finished before the 7 July mid-season patch, which rebalanced every offhand and cut the base multipliers of several of the sheet’s leaders (Arcane Orb, Lightning Totem, Lightning Plasma and Death Blade among them). As such, use it to see how affinity stacking changes the picture, not as a current ranking.
| Mods with full affinity stack | Top of the sheet |
|---|---|
| 7 | Death Blade, Lightning Totem, Lightning Plasma, Arcane Orb |
| 6 | Death Blade, Lightning Totem, Arcane Orb, Arcane Apocalypse |
| 5 | Lightning Totem, Death Blade, Arcane Apocalypse, Arcane Orb |
| 2 to 4 | Arcane Apocalypse, Lightning Totem, Arcane Orb |
| 1 | Arcane Apocalypse, Arcane Orb, Static Charge |
What the sheet showed before the patch: with few mods fully stacked, Arcane Apocalypse and Arcane Orb led, and with all seven, Death Blade and Lightning Totem pulled ahead. The general lesson still holds, since some offhands scale much harder than others with fully stacked affinities, so it pays to plan your mods rather than just picking the offhand with the biggest base number.
Mind that “most damage on a sheet” is not the same as the best offhand to play. The sheet’s author also rated how comfortable the offhands they played felt. Death Blade got a “no”, while Electric Dragons, Burning Shield, Arcane Apocalypse, Spark, Spinning Blade and Blood Dragons got a “yes”.
I usually go with arcane offhands myself (Arcane Orb and Arcane Apocalypse). For the current season, the official site’s live meta page (dwarvenrealms.com/meta) shows which offhands the top players actually run, which is a better guide than any pre-patch spreadsheet.
Dwarven Realms builds and skill tree
Builds shift a fair amount between seasons, so it is more useful to understand the progression and the damage formulas than to copy one setup. That being said, here is a solid starting point.
Early skill tree order
With Spears from the weapon rack, a good tree order is:
- Health regen nodes first
- Then the health and energy regen nodes in the bottom right (Recuperate and Clarity)
- Then straight to Empowered Corrupted Spear, taking every cost reduction node and Corrupted Spear damage node on the way
- Then Infinite Wind and Proximity Destruction
- Flat damage nodes (Warstrike) last
Konmura shared an example tree on the Dwarven Leaderboard site if you want to see it laid out. Later, add the potion nodes (for the 100 armor per potion relic) and the Bloodlust crit damage nodes when you start pushing.
Dwarven Realms FAQ
Do stats have diminishing returns?
Not on items, according to Stitch. There is no reason to split a stat across your gear, so stack the one you care about wherever it fits. Mind that damage stats sharing a bracket in the damage formula still add to each other, so each point is worth a bit less relative to your total (see How damage works).
How many affixes can an item have?
As far as the community knows, there is no limit. The only thing stopping you is materials.
How do I reset stats or respec?
There is a free daily respec, added in Season 3. Beyond that, extra resets cost gold. Older sources put the first three at 2,500 gold each, with the price rising the more often you reset. According to players on the Steam forums, you can reset your talents, the Elven tree, your stats and your cards.
As such, it is fine to experiment a little bit early on, but do not reset every time you find a new item.
How do I join a fellowship?
A fellowship is the game’s version of a guild. It is asynchronous, so you do not play in the same rupture together. What you get is shared buffs, extra zones (fellowship dungeons) and a group chat. There are also separate Fellowship leagues on the ladder.
As far as players on the Steam forums know, there is no in-game fellowship browser. You either get invited by someone who is already in one, or you post your in-game name in the official Discord and ask to join. If random invites annoy you, you can block them in the settings.
Which race should I pick?
Pick the race that shares the most affinity tags with the offhand you want to play. The full table is in the races and affinities section above. If you are undecided, Human fits the largest number of offhands.
Are there any codes?
The only codes we could find are streamer codes for cosmetic mounts, shared back in 2024. Codes that were shared in the past include MrLlama$, AaronRPG$, ZizaranWhale123, Steelmage123$, WOOFWOOF (Overwolf), NugiNeck123 and #CutestCali (Raxx). Mind that players report some older codes no longer work.
To redeem them, finish the tutorial, go to the Castle area, walk to the bookshelves on the right side and go through the secret passage between them. If a mount does not show up right away, restarting the game usually fixes it.
How do I get Fortune Tomb Tokens?
Fortune tokens drop from Ancient Dwarven chests. In the mid game you use them to run infused ruptures at 79+ with modifiers like double essence, double tears or double containers.
Fortune Tomb Tokens are also the keys for the Tomb of Fortune dungeon. You cannot craft them. You get one a day from the daily quests (not available in offline mode), they drop fairly often from Ancient Dwarven chests, sometimes from boss chests, and a merchant NPC inside one of the dungeons sells them for fortune fragments or scrolls. Kordrim can also run Tomb of Fortune keys for you.
How do I get into the Underrealm?
The Underrealm recipe opens at R75. Underrealm shards drop from R65 in infused ruptures and from R80 out of containers. The boss gate needs 100 essence these days, and it no longer consumes it.
Which dungeons can I skip?
In an earlier season, Stitch listed the dungeons worth running as Grave Digger’s Cove, Elysia, the gear dungeons (Harmonian Olympus, Bridge, Archeon), the Elven Capital, Zul, the Underrealm and the Dark bosses. The Catacombs matter too (see above). In his view, everything else was only worth it for mount farming or Dark boss practice, although boss dungeons like Min Lodhur can still drop belts.
Do extra keys on boss fights do anything?
Yes. Extra keys on a boss fight give you extra experience on top of the extra loot.
Conclusion
Dwarven Realms looks messy at first, but the progression follows a clear order: the farming monograms first, then shadow chests and belts, then Bridge, Elven keys and Zul, and finally forging and the Dark bosses. If you only take one tip from this guide, build the 40% elite spawn set early and keep it, since almost every later step leans on fast farming.
Use the benchmarks as rough checkpoints, and check the Discord at the start of each season, because numbers and drop levels do move.
