Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Master Strategy Guide

An Introduction to Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

Welcome, Greenbeard. Management has approved your solo assignment to the most hostile planet in the galaxy, Hoxxes IV. Your mission: mine valuable minerals, survive against impossible odds, and get out alive. This is Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, a single-player, top-down auto-shooter that translates the beloved universe of the co-op FPS Deep Rock Galactic into the frantic, horde-survival genre often called “survivor-like” or “bullet heaven”.

Developed by Funday Games and published by Ghost Ship Publishing, this title puts you in the boots of a lone dwarf tasked with facing down endless swarms of alien creatures. While your weapons fire automatically, your survival depends entirely on your movement, strategic positioning, and the critical upgrade choices you make during each perilous descent. The game launched to a “Very Positive” reception on Steam, praised for its addictive gameplay loop and faithful adaptation of the iconic dwarven mining experience.

The Core Gameplay Loop: Mining vs. Mayhem

Every mission, or “dive,” in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor drops you into a procedurally generated cave system, ensuring no two expeditions are ever the same. The fundamental gameplay revolves around a constant, strategic tension between two primary objectives: killing bugs and mining resources.

Success in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor hinges on a delicate balance. Annihilating swarms of bugs causes them to drop experience gems, which are essential for leveling up and acquiring powerful in-run upgrades. However, every bug you kill also accelerates the yellow progress bar at the top of the screen. This bar dictates the timing of events, and filling it too quickly will prematurely summon the stage-ending boss, cutting short your time to gather resources.

Conversely, focusing on mining provides Gold and Nitra for immediate upgrades in the inter-stage shop, along with rare minerals like Bismor and Croppa that fuel your permanent meta-progression between dives. Neglecting combat to mine can leave you dangerously under-leveled when a massive swarm inevitably appears, but ignoring the walls means sacrificing the long-term power needed to tackle higher difficulties. A master miner learns to pace themselves, viewing the progress bar not as a simple timer, but as a resource to be managed. They know when to farm bugs for a crucial level-up and when to prioritize digging for the wealth that will strengthen all future dives.

Understanding Your Mission: Dives, Objectives, and Extraction

A standard dive consists of five distinct stages, each set in a progressively more dangerous part of the cave. Each of the first four stages concludes with a battle against one or more powerful Elite enemies, while the fifth and final stage pits you against the formidable Dreadnought.

The on-screen progress bar is your mission clock. As it fills, it will trigger milestones, including massive enemy swarms, the arrival of a supply pod containing a powerful artifact, and finally, the appearance of the main objective (typically the stage boss). Once you complete this final objective, a 30-second countdown begins. You must reach the flashing green extraction zone of the drop pod before this timer expires. Failure to do so results in the end of your run, regardless of how much health you have left. Every second counts.

The Right Dwarf for the Job: Class & Sub-Class Breakdown

Management provides four distinct classes of dwarf for your assignments, each with a unique set of skills, stats, and available weaponry. While you begin your career as a Scout, you will quickly unlock the other three classes by increasing your overall Player Rank through completing dives. Each class further specializes into three “Class Mods” or sub-classes, offering a total of twelve distinct playstyles to master.

How to Unlock Every Class in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

Your journey begins with the Scout. To access the full roster, you simply need to play the game. Every run, successful or not, contributes experience to your Player Rank, unlocking new classes at key milestones.

Class	Player Rank to Unlock
Scout	Default
Gunner	Rank 3
Engineer	Rank 5
Driller	Rank 7

The Scout: Master of Mobility and Precision

Core Identity: The Scout is the most nimble dwarf, defined by high mobility and evasion. He has the lowest base health but compensates with a starting dodge chance and the highest base critical damage bonus in the game at 200%, making him a natural for high-risk, high-reward critical hit builds. His arsenal favors light and precise projectile weapons.

The Gunner: Unstoppable Firepower and Resilience

Core Identity: The Gunner is a walking fortress. Boasting the highest base health and starting armor, he is designed to stand his ground and unleash overwhelming firepower. Many of his most powerful weapons, like the “Lead Storm” Powered Minigun, are directional, requiring you to manually face your targets, turning combat into a tactical dance of positioning and firing lines.

The Engineer: Gadgets, Turrets, and Area Control

Core Identity: The Engineer is the thinking dwarf’s choice, a master of strategic area control. He relies on deploying an army of constructs, including turrets and drones, to deal consistent, passive damage while he focuses on mining and maneuvering. He also possesses a natural bonus to all experience point gains, allowing him to level up faster than other classes.

The Driller: Environmental Destruction and Elemental Chaos

Core Identity: The Driller excels at two things: melting rock and melting bugs. With the highest base mining speed, he can reshape the battlefield faster than anyone. His weapon kit is heavily focused on inflicting potent damage-over-time (DoT) status effects, specializing in and weapons that leave enemies burning and corroding in his wake.

Sub-Class (Class Mod) Master Overview

Each class unlocks three distinct sub-classes by reaching specific class rank milestones. These mods fundamentally alter your starting stats, weapon, and the pool of available weapons you can find during a dive, defining your entire build strategy.

Class	Sub-Class Name	Unlock Requirement	Core Bonuses	Starting Weapon	Available Weapon Tags
Scout	Classic	Player Rank 1	+10% Move Speed, +20 Max HP	Deepcore GK2
	Recon	Scout Rank 9	+25% Dodge; On dodge: +35% Move/Reload Speed for 5s	Zhukov NUK17
	Sharp Shooter	Scout Rank 18	+15% Crit Chance, +50% Crit Damage; Overkill damage causes shrapnel explosion	M1000 Classic
Gunner	Weapons Specialist	Player Rank 3	Fire 8 high-power projectiles after firing 100 projectiles	“Lead Storm” Minigun
	Juggernaut	Gunner Rank 9	+10 Armor, +50 Max HP; On taking damage: +10% Damage for 10s (stacks 5x)	“Bulldog” Revolver
	Heavy Gunner	Gunner Rank 18	-10% Move Speed; +25% Range/Reload Speed to weapons	“Thunderhead” Autocannon
Engineer	Maintenance Worker	Player Rank 5	+10% Damage/Reload Speed to weapons	LMG Gun Platform
	Tinkerer	Engineer Rank 9	+10% XP Gain; All weapons start at Level 3	“Warthog” Auto 210
	Demolitionist	Engineer Rank 18	+20% Explosion Radius/Reload Speed to weapons	Deepcore PGL
Driller	Foreman	Player Rank 7	On mining: +2% Mining Speed for 2s (stacks 25x)	Subata 120
	Interrogator	Driller Rank 9	+100% Status Effect Damage, -30% Damage	CRSPR Flamethrower	,
	Strong Armed	Driller Rank 18	+20% Weapon Range	Impact Axe

An Arsenal of Destruction: Weapons, Upgrades, and Overclocks

Your survival on Hoxxes IV depends on the weapons you choose and how you upgrade them. The system is built on layers of synergy, culminating in game-changing modifications known as Overclocks.

Understanding Weapon Tags: Building Your Synergy

Every weapon in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is categorized by a series of descriptive tags. These tags are the foundation of powerful, synergistic builds. They fall into several categories, including damage type (e.g.,,), weapon family (e.g.,,), and firing style (e.g.,,).

The key to a strong build lies in recognizing these tags. When you level up, many of the offered upgrades provide bonuses to a specific tag, such as “+15% Damage” or “+20% Reload Speed”. By equipping multiple weapons that share a common tag, you ensure that these upgrades benefit a larger portion of your arsenal, dramatically increasing your overall power. A dwarf with four weapons will gain far more from a damage upgrade than a dwarf with a scattered assortment of weapon types.

Elemental Damage Effects Explained

Elemental damage is a cornerstone of many advanced builds. Each of the five non-kinetic damage types applies a unique status effect, and understanding these is crucial for maximizing your effectiveness.

Damage Type	Effect
Fire	Applies a potent damage-over-time (DoT) effect, burning enemies for heavy damage.
Acid	Applies a DoT and increases the damage the target takes from all sources, acting as a powerful debuff.
Cold	Slows enemies with each hit, eventually building up to freeze them solid. Frozen enemies are temporarily incapacitated.
Electric	Applies a DoT and increases the target’s vulnerability to critical hits, making it a perfect pairing for crit-focused builds.
Plasma	A distinct energy damage type. While it has no inherent status effect, plasma weapons often have unique properties like bouncing projectiles.
Kinetic	The baseline physical damage type with no additional elemental effects.

The Power of Overclocks: Your Key to Victory

Overclocks are the most significant power spikes available for your weapons, transforming them with powerful new abilities and statistical boosts. The system, however, requires a long-term investment strategy. Early runs with a new weapon are best viewed as “investment runs.” The primary goal is not necessarily to defeat the final Dreadnought, but to level that weapon to 12. This permanently unlocks its game-changing Overclock potential for all future dives. This perspective is crucial, as it reframes a run that ends in failure but successfully unlocks an Overclock as a successful investment in your future power.

How to Unlock Overclocks: To unlock the Overclock feature for any given weapon, you must get that weapon to Level 12 during a single run. This is a one-time milestone that permanently enables Overclocks for that weapon across all future runs and all characters.
How to Use Overclocks: Once unlocked, the weapon will be offered a choice of two “Balanced” Overclocks upon reaching Level 6 and Level 12 in a run. At the pinnacle of Level 18, you will be offered a choice of two “Unstable” Overclocks, which provide the most dramatic and powerful transformations.
The Salvage Option: If both Overclock choices presented are detrimental to your current build (for example, changing your damage type away from one you’ve been buffing), you can choose the “Salvage” option. This forgoes the Overclock and instead grants you a powerful, generic Epic-rarity upgrade for that weapon.

Top-Tier Weapons for Every Situation in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

While balance is subject to change, several weapons have established themselves as community favorites and top performers. A successful loadout typically includes a mix of single-target damage for handling Elites and the Dreadnought, and area-of-effect (AoE) weapons for managing the swarm.

Cryo Grenade: Widely considered one of the best utility and crowd-control weapons in the game. Its ability to freeze massive groups of enemies provides invaluable breathing room. With Overclocks, it can split into multiple grenades, covering a huge area and effectively neutralizing entire swarms.
M1000 Classic: The premier weapon for single-target elimination. It fires slow but incredibly powerful shots that can pierce through multiple enemies, making it ideal for sniping high-priority targets and dealing massive damage to bosses.
“Thunderhead” Heavy Autocannon: A powerhouse of raw kinetic damage. It locks its firing direction for the duration of its clip, demanding careful positioning but rewarding it with a devastating barrage of explosive rounds that can shred both swarms and bosses.
DRAK-25 Plasma Carbine: An excellent all-around weapon that fires bouncing plasma projectiles. Its consistent damage output and ability to hit enemies around corners make it a reliable choice for any situation.
Tactical Leadburster: A throwable grenade that deploys into a spinning turret, spraying projectiles in all directions. It offers exceptional, sustained AoE damage and is a cornerstone of many powerful Gunner and Driller builds.

The Path to Power: A Guide to Progression

Your dwarf’s strength grows in two distinct ways: temporary power gained during a single dive, and permanent power accumulated between dives. Mastering both is essential for conquering the highest Hazard levels.

In-Run Success: Leveling Up, Spending Gold, and Using Nitra

During each stage of a dive, your primary goal is to gather resources to become stronger.

Leveling Up: Killing bugs and mining any resource grants experience points (XP). Earning enough XP allows you to level up, which presents you with a choice of three randomly selected upgrade cards. These cards provide temporary bonuses for the remainder of the dive, such as increasing a weapon’s damage, boosting your movement speed, or granting a bonus to a specific weapon tag.
The Shop: Between each of the five stages, you can access a shop to spend the Gold and Nitra you’ve collected.
- Gold: Used to purchase general character upgrades (like Max HP or Move Speed), heal for 50% of your health, or reroll the upgrade choices offered.
- Nitra: Used exclusively to purchase direct level-ups for your equipped weapons. This is often the most reliable way to push a key weapon towards its next Overclock threshold.

Permanent Power: Meta-Upgrades and What to Prioritize

Between dives, you can visit the Upgrades menu to spend your accumulated Credits and rare minerals (Bismor, Croppa, Enor Pearl, Jadiz, Magnite, and Umanite) on permanent “meta-upgrades”. These are passive stat boosts that apply to all classes and are the foundation of your long-term power growth.

The cost for these upgrades increases significantly with each level, while the benefit per level often provides diminishing returns. Therefore, a balanced approach is far more efficient for new players. Instead of maxing out one stat, spread your resources across the early, cheaper levels of several important upgrades.

A recommended priority list for new players is:

S-Tier (Top Priority): Heavy Bullets (Damage), Fast Learner (XP Gain), Pocket Magnets (Pickup Radius). These three upgrades provide the most significant and immediate impact on your ability to scale and survive within a run.
A-Tier (High Priority): Getting Fit (Max HP), Better Boots (Move Speed). More health provides a crucial buffer for mistakes, and speed is life when dodging swarms and bosses.
B-Tier (Good Value): Upgraded Armor (Armor), Reload Speed, Mining 101 (Mining Speed). These are all valuable but become more impactful once your core stats are established.
C-Tier (Lower Priority): Target Practice (Critical Chance), First Aid Kit (Life Regen). While useful, these stats require significant investment to feel impactful compared to the raw power of the higher-tier upgrades.

Unlocking Your Potential: A Guide to Milestones and Artifacts

The Milestones system is the primary driver of unlocks in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Completing specific in-game objectives—such as reaching a certain player rank, leveling a weapon, or collecting resources—unlocks everything from new weapons and class mods to powerful, run-altering Artifacts.

Artifacts are special items found in the supply pods that drop once per stage. They provide unique and powerful passive effects. Key artifacts to look out for include:

Gold-Tipped Bullets: Increases your damage by 1% for every 5 Gold you possess.
Pickled Nitra: Increases your damage by 2% for every Nitra you have, at the cost of a small reduction in move speed.
Gold/Nitra Scanner: Gives you a chance to find extra Gold or Nitra when mining any rock.
BLT Ration Pack: Provides a massive +70 Max HP and +2 Life Regen.

Gearing Up: How the New Gear System Works (1.0 Update)

With the full 1.0 release, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor introduced a permanent Gear system, adding a new layer of long-term progression. This system deliberately shifts some of the statistical power that was previously locked behind the resource grind of meta-upgrades into an exciting loot-based system. This makes individual runs more rewarding, as a single lucky drop can provide a substantial power boost.

Gear Types: There are six categories of gear you can find and equip: Armor, Weapon Mods, Canisters, Gadgets, Tools, and Chips. Each provides passive bonuses related to its category (e.g., Armor boosts defensive stats, Weapon Mods boost combat stats).
How to Get Gear: Gear can drop randomly from any enemy, but a piece of gear is guaranteed to drop from each stage’s boss.
Rarity and Scaling: Gear comes in four rarities (Uncommon to Legendary) and can have special “quirks” that significantly alter gameplay. The quality and level of gear drops improve as you complete progression milestones, such as clearing higher Hazard levels for the first time.

Advanced Tactics for Survival on Hoxxes IV

Once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to learn the advanced techniques that separate the Greenbeards from the Greybeards. True domination of Hoxxes IV requires more than just good weapons; it requires mastery of movement, the environment, and the enemy.

Mastering Movement: Kiting and Positioning

“Kiting” is the art of leading a large group of enemies on a chase, keeping them clustered behind you while you maintain a safe distance to fire your weapons. This is the single most important survival skill. However, a hidden mechanic makes this trickier than it seems: enemies that are far off-screen will gain a significant speed boost to catch up. This means you cannot simply run away in a straight line forever. Effective kiting involves running in large, controlled circles or looping paths around the map, keeping the bulk of the swarm on-screen and manageable.

Defensive Mining: Creating Choke Points and Escape Routes

Your pickaxe is your most powerful tactical tool. The destructible environments in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor are not just for finding resources; they are for shaping the battlefield to your advantage.

Creating Killzones: Before a large swarm arrives, dig a long, narrow tunnel with only one entrance. As the bugs pour into this choke point, they will be perfectly lined up for directional weapons like the Gunner’s Minigun or piercing weapons like the Scout’s M1000 Classic.
Building Arenas: Conversely, for builds that require constant movement and dodging, use your pickaxe to clear out large, open caverns. This gives you ample room to maneuver and kite the swarm without getting cornered.
Planning Escape Routes: When exploring, you can pre-dig long tunnels but leave the final layer of rock intact. If you get trapped later, you can quickly break through this last barrier to make a clean escape while the bugs are forced to go the long way around.

Enemy Prioritization: Know Your Bugs

Not all bugs are created equal. Knowing which to eliminate first is key to managing chaos.

Low Priority – Melee Swarm: Standard Glyphid Grunts and Slashers are your primary concern in terms of numbers, but they are also the easiest to kite. They should be managed with AoE weapons but rarely focused on individually.
High Priority – Ranged Threats: Acid Spitters are extremely dangerous. They will stay at a distance and lob projectiles at you, forcing you to dodge while also dealing with the melee swarm. Eliminating them quickly should always be a priority.
Tactical Priority – Exploders: These large, orange bugs will run towards you and detonate. While dangerous, their explosion also damages other bugs. A skilled dwarf can bait an Exploder into a dense pack of Grunts, triggering a chain reaction that clears a huge portion of the screen for you.¹¹

How to Defeat the Dreadnought in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

The final boss of every dive is the Dreadnought, a massive, heavily armored Glyphid that requires a specific strategy to defeat.

Preparation is Key: The Dreadnought fight is a test of movement. Before you break the final egg to summon it, spend time clearing out a large, open arena or a long, circular track around the perimeter of the map. This space is essential for dodging its attacks.
Dodge the Leap: The Dreadnought’s most devastating attack is a long-range leap. It will telegraph this attack by briefly stopping its movement and spreading its arms. The moment you see this, immediately change your direction and run 90 degrees to the side. The attack targets your predicted location, so a sharp turn is the only way to evade it.
Use the Supply Pod: The supply pod is your secret weapon. If you can lure the Dreadnought into the drop zone before calling down the pod, the impact will instantly remove a significant chunk of its health—often as much as 50%. This can dramatically shorten the fight and reduce the chances of being overwhelmed.

Know Your Terrain: Biome-Specific Strategies

Each of the five biomes on Hoxxes IV presents a unique set of environmental hazards and opportunities. Adapting your strategy to the terrain is a hallmark of an expert player, as each biome is a distinct tactical puzzle, not just a different visual backdrop.

Crystalline Caverns

As the starting biome, the Crystalline Caverns have no major environmental hazards. Use this area to practice the core mechanics of mining, kiting, and managing the progress bar without additional complications.

Magma Core

This fiery biome is defined by its environmental dangers. The ground is riddled with lava vents and pools of magma that will damage you on contact. However, bugs are smart enough to path around these hazards. You can use this to your advantage by kiting swarms around large lava pools, using them as natural barriers to create space. For riskier plays, dwarves with “on-damage” triggers (like the Recon Scout) can briefly step in the lava to activate their abilities. Also, be wary of the volatile exploding plants scattered throughout the caves.

Hollow Boughs

The defining feature of the Hollow Boughs is its regenerating terrain. The thin brown and thick red vines that block your path will grow back a short time after being mined. This can be a deadly trap if you’re not paying attention, as an escape route can suddenly close behind you. However, a fast miner can use this to their advantage, digging through a wall of vines to escape a swarm and letting it regrow to block their pursuers. This biome is also home to Mactera, flying enemies that completely ignore all terrain, making them a high priority.

Salt Pits

The rock in the Salt Pits is generally easier to mine, allowing for faster terrain manipulation. The key tactical element here is the large, red, pulsating crystal clusters embedded in the ground. Mining one of these clusters will trigger a cascade of stalactites to fall from the ceiling in the surrounding area, dealing massive damage to anything caught underneath. The optimal strategy is to lure a massive swarm, including any Elite enemies, onto these clusters before breaking them, effectively turning the environment into a powerful weapon.

Azure Weald

The Azure Weald is the most unique and dynamic biome. There is no Red Sugar for healing; instead, you must stand near glowing crystalline formations that provide healing over time. The most significant feature is the presence of jump pads. Walking over one will launch your dwarf high into the air, granting a temporary speed boost upon landing and destroying terrain and knocking back bugs at the impact point. These pads are a powerful tool for mobility, allowing you to leap over entire swarms to escape being cornered. Mastering their use is essential for survival in this lush but lethal environment.

Final Tips & Tricks: Rock and Stone!

As you prepare for your next dive, keep these essential tips from veteran miners in mind. They could be the difference between a hefty sack of loot and becoming bug food.

The Golden Rule: Always be mining. From the moment you land, your pickaxe should be swinging. Every rock and mineral you break grants a small amount of XP, which can give you a crucial level or two before the first major swarm even arrives.
Lootbugs are Friends (and Treasure): Those passive, pudgy creatures waddling around are Lootbugs. They won’t harm you and are packed with Gold and Nitra. Mine them on sight for a quick and easy resource boost.
Plan Your Build: Don’t go into a dive blind. Decide on a strategy beforehand. Are you aiming for a build with the Driller? A build with the Gunner? Having a goal will make your upgrade choices at every level-up more focused and impactful.
Don’t Fear the Reaper (Too Much): A failed run is not a wasted run. You keep all of the rare minerals and credits you collected, which go directly into your permanent meta-upgrades. Every dive, no matter the outcome, makes you stronger.
Stay on the Ramp: After you defeat the stage boss and the drop pod arrives, you don’t have to enter immediately. You can stand on the entrance ramp without triggering extraction. Use these final seconds to farm the remaining swarm for a last-minute XP boost before the bugs finally force you inside.

Now get in there, miner. Hoxxes isn’t going to mine itself. For Karl! Rock and Stone!

Disclaimer: This is an unofficial fan work, all trademarks and copyrights for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor belong to the developer Funday Games.

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