Dungeon Settlers – How to Avoid Getting Overrun by Goblins

How to Not Get Goblin’d

The second layer of the dungeon, the Mines, is home to numerous goblins. Goblins are extremely fast and aggressively target vulnerable archers and mages. They will pursue them at almost any cost, and you generally cannot outrun them.

The key to dealing with them is to use the tight corridors throughout the Mines to control their movement.

Using Corridors to Counter Goblins

Bodyblock with Your Tank

Position your tank at the front of a narrow corridor and place your ranged and vulnerable units behind them. This creates a formation that prevents goblins from reaching your archers and mages while allowing your ranged units to attack safely.

The basic setup is:

1. Put your tank at the front of the corridor.
2. Place your squishy units in the rows behind the tank.
3. Keep the formation intact while the goblins approach.
4. Attack the goblins from behind your tank.

The tank absorbs the incoming damage while the rest of the party deals damage without giving the goblins direct access to the back line.

Use the G Hotkey

You must use the G hotkey to prevent your units from breaking formation.

If your units leave their assigned positions, a goblin can immediately exploit the opening and reach your mages or other vulnerable characters.

Do not break formation until all goblins are dead. Even if only one goblin remains and it is distracted by something such as a bubble, do not rush forward. The moment a path to your squishy units becomes available, the goblin will abandon its current target and take it.

Nature Mage

The Nature Mage is particularly effective for this strategy because Strange Seeds create uninhabitable tiles that can restrict enemy movement.

Use the seeds to support your tank and reduce the number of goblins that can approach at once. This is especially effective in a two-tile-wide tunnel, where seeds can restrict the available path and force goblins into a line.

For example, if your tank is occupying a corridor and a seed blocks part of the remaining path, enemies may be forced to approach your melee units one at a time while the others wait behind them.

Water Mage

The Water Mage is useful for baiting enemies into attacking your organized formation.

Place a bubble near the enemies and then move your units away. Once the bubble is destroyed, the enemies will come toward your now-organized group.

Water Mages can also summon glaciers, which can be used to seal off a corridor when necessary.

Example Party Setup

A practical setup for this strategy can include the following roles:

Kragas, Tank

Kragas stands at the front and absorbs the goblins’ attacks. With his shield, Guard Rate inscriptions, and high Constitution, he can handle the attacks of a single goblin.

Evalyn, Additional DPS

Evalyn provides additional damage. In the example setup, there is no archer available, so she supplies additional ranged pressure instead.

Serana, Water Mage

Serana provides ranged damage and bubbles for baiting goblins. She can also summon glaciers to seal off corridors when needed.

Lyrian, Nature Mage

Lyrian provides healing and battlefield control.

Her Strange Seeds provide substantial healing while also restricting enemy movement. In a narrow corridor, the seeds can limit the goblins’ available path so that only one enemy can reach the melee units at a time, forcing the others to wait in line.

Nature Mage Abilities

The Nature Mage’s abilities provide more than healing. They combine sustain with battlefield control.

Healing Touch

Healing Touch provides unlimited out-of-combat healing, removing much of the pressure caused by limited healing herbs and medicine.

As long as it remains free to use, it can eliminate running out of healing items as a limiting factor during dungeon exploration.

The ability does require the Nature Mage to move into melee range to heal people during combat, so using it in combat can be dangerous. If the player is not careful with tactics, monsters can kill the healing mage while they are attempting to heal another character.

Strange Seeds

Strange Seeds provides both healing and battlefield control.

The healing is particularly effective on a shield tank. While a single healing seed may not be enough to keep a tank alive against a boss indefinitely, it can make a shield tank extremely durable in many other situations. The healing is also area-of-effect, allowing it to sustain multiple melee characters at once.

The combination of Strange Seeds and Water Mage bubbles can make the bubbles surprisingly durable. On Hard Mode, a level 3 Water Mage’s bubbles could survive attacks from goblins as long as they were being healed by Strange Seeds from a level 2 Nature Mage.

The seeds also occupy a tile, which makes them useful for controlling enemy movement. In narrow corridors, this can be extremely effective.

Water Mages can achieve a similar effect with Glacier, but they need to sacrifice a bubble to do so, and Glacier is somewhat unwieldy for this purpose.

Enemies also do not appear to target the seed when they still have a route to the player’s units. For example, if Kragas is in a corridor and the only ways forward are through Kragas or through a small seed, enemies still choose Kragas rather than the seed.

This makes Strange Seeds particularly effective in the Mines, where narrow corridors naturally limit enemy movement.

Combining Nature and Water Mages

The combination of Strange Seeds and Water Mage bubbles is particularly effective.

The seed provides area-of-effect healing while the bubble acts as a target for enemy attacks. Together, they can make the bubble extremely difficult for goblins to destroy.

The Nature Mage’s battlefield control also complements the Water Mage’s ability to bait enemies. Seeds can block or narrow routes, while bubbles can lure enemies toward a prepared formation.

Key Rules for Fighting Goblins

• Use narrow corridors to limit how many goblins can reach your party.
• Keep your tank at the front of the formation.
• Place your squishy units behind the tank.
• Use the G hotkey to prevent units from breaking formation.
• Do not break formation until all goblins are dead.
• Do not rush forward because only one goblin remains.
• Do not rely on a bubble to keep the last goblin distracted. If a path to your squishy units opens, the goblin can immediately switch targets.
• Use Strange Seeds to block or narrow enemy routes.
• Use Water Mage bubbles to bait enemies toward your prepared formation.
• Use Glacier to seal off a corridor when necessary.