Battle basics: how a battle works
From Battle Preparations to the results screen: bases and supply bases, how battles are won, what happens when you retreat, and what you take home.
- Prepare in the lobby, fight, then read your results.
- Take bases: they are where you come back after a defeat.
- Read the victory condition at the top left: it tells you how to win.
Tap an underlined word to see what it means.
Every battle follows the same shape: you sign up, prepare in a lobby, fight on a battlefield with bases and soldiers until one side meets the victory condition or the clock runs out, and then read your results. Knowing that shape tells you what to do at each moment.
1. Battle Preparations
When a match is found (or you join a room), you enter Battle Preparations: a lobby showing every player and the battle's rules. Here you:
- Read the Battle Conditions (items, the Retreat Power-up rule, the time limit) and the Victory Conditions.
- Press Battle Preparation to choose your weapon or weapons and your battle item.
- Press Ready. When everyone is ready a short countdown starts; Cancel Ready stops it in its first seconds.
- A loading screen shows both teams, then the battle opens with the victory condition.
Your battle item is not carried over from the last battle: choose it every time.
2. The battlefield
Most maps are dotted with bases, and each side starts next to its own supply base. Squads of soldiers roam between them. The minimap shows bases in your colour or the enemy's.
On the map, bases in blue are yours, red are the enemy's and yellow belong to nobody yet. A flag marks a supply base.
Bases
A base is a walled square on the map. Holding bases gives you places to respawn and heal, and on capture maps it is how you win. On DWO Reborn every base except the supply bases gets a random type when the battle starts, and the base panel tells you what to defeat to take it:
4 Base Captains
Defeat the four captains guarding it.
100 Troop
Defeat the base's hundred soldiers.
Tower
Break its towers. Buy Damage+ first: towers ignore your Attack.
Commander
Defeat the commander guarding it.
Juggernaut
Destroy its tiger tanks.
Supply base
Each side's home. It falls when both of its Supply Captains are defeated.
- In rooms with a capture victory condition, bases are taken by breaking their buildings instead.
- Ruins (empty bases with four dots on the map) hold four squads that never come back once defeated.
- Water Lily Village has a tower base in the middle: break its four towers to take it.
Healing in your bases
Standing in one of your own bases heals you a little every couple of seconds for each healing urn still standing in it; your supply base heals faster. Your base does not heal you while you are burning in the Arena's fire.
Soldiers, crates and pickups
- Squad leaders drop flasks (see Flask upgrades) and sometimes meat buns, which restore Life.
- Breaking crates and urns releases items: buffs, healing, and sometimes gear, a weapon or a consumable, dropped as a pouch or chest you walk over.
- A consumable from a crate is yours win or lose; a weapon is kept only if your team wins.
3. How a battle is won
The victory condition is shown at the top left of the battle screen. These are the ones you will meet:
| Condition | How it plays |
|---|---|
| Enemy commander 10 retreats | The first side to make enemy commanders retreat 10 times wins (3 in a 1v1). The rule of every Quick match. |
| More enemy commanders defeated | When the clock runs out, the side with more commander defeats wins. |
| Damage Points | Some Quick rows are decided at time-up by the total damage dealt to enemy players. |
| Capture all enemy bases | Take every base the enemy started with. |
| Capture all bases | Hold every base on the map. |
| Unknown | Revealed when the battle starts. |
- If no side meets the condition before the clock runs out, the room's judgement decides; an exact tie is a draw.
- Commanders are players (and CPU generals in some rooms). Defeating a CPU general never counts.
- Quitting a match your side is losing counts as a loss.
A few conditions from the original game (Defeat 2000 enemies, Treasure x10, Annihilate) can still be picked for a room, but nothing in the battle tracks them yet, so the clock decides.
4. Retreating and coming back
You do not die in this game; you retreat. When your Life reaches zero you leave the field for a moment and come back at the base or supply base your side holds that is nearest to where you fell. A line in the message area tells everyone.
- Take a base near where you want to fight: it shortens every trip back.
- What happens to your flask upgrades depends on the battle's Retreat Power-up rule: Maintain keeps them, Decrease costs you one upgrade, Lost wipes them all. Timed buffs and a running Advance+ always end.
- Each retreat is counted on the results screen, and in commander-retreat battles every retreat is a point for the enemy.
Because coming back is quick, chasing kills alone rarely wins a base fight. Holding the ground does.
If you lose connection
Restart the game and log back in quickly to return to your battle. A quest carries on where you left it. In a team PvP match your seat is kept, and a CPU general fills in until you are back. In a 1v1 your opponent waits only a short while before you forfeit.
5. The results screen
Every finished PvP battle ends on the results screen: Victory, Defeat or Draw, and for each player Occupy (bases taken), K.O.s, Upgrades, Commanders Defeated and Honor. Back in your house the Merit Rewards report opens by itself, with a card for each find: keep it or discard it. Anything that does not fit in your storage arrives as a letter.
| Reward | When |
|---|---|
| Gems and ore | Every battle: a few gems and ore for a win, fewer for a loss, nothing for a draw. |
| Honor | Every battle except Mock Battle rooms. Honor drives promotion. |
| Fame | Moves only in battles where everyone taking part is a real player; goes up or down with your results. |
| Chi gem | Winners of Melee-type battles. |
| Rare drop | Sometimes, after winning a quest or a Melee: a Herbal Elixir, a Granite Belt or a Rank 2 orb. |
| Weapon | From crates, Supply Captains or a win streak; kept only on a win. |
| Weapon Usage | Earned in PvP only. |
PvP battles do not pay gold or Miso Koins at the moment; quests do.
Check yourself
1. Where do you come back after a defeat?
That is why taking bases near the fight matters.
2. How is a Quick Melee won?
In a 1v1 it is 3 times.
3. When can you keep a weapon you found in PvP?
A loss or a draw loses the find.