5 Attachment(s)
The TROOPER Frontier Dungeon Picture Guide
The Bugle Sounds
Welcome to the Trooper Dungeon guide. Arguably a dungeon which does not need a guide, but I’m nothing if not overly-detailed and needlessly verbose! Despite heavy editing, there are still a lot of words here, so I don't mind if you skip straight to the pictures. I've tried to include only the most relevant information in those. We'll dive right in with a Quick-Reference Image for you. You run this dungeon for the achievements, Trooper talismans, cosmic XP runes, and Black Rain.
UPDATE: There is now a HARD mode for this dungeon! Jump straight to the 2nd Post below, where any new information will be collected. This original post will eventually be updated as necessary.
The Basics
The Trooper Dungeon is a low-difficulty frontier dungeon, released in July 2019 for the Balance of Power event. The event introduced a number of new characters, including US Cavalry Eddie and Major Malakhov, both of whom are still obtainable as achievement characters in the dungeon. In addition to earning those two characters, the Trooper Dungeon is also the only place to find Trooper Talismans.
While Key acquisition during the launch event appeared rather convoluted and involved multiple different types of souls, these days there are more straight forward methods of accessing this dungeon:
- ”Trooper Frontier Key” in the Trooper Store for 5000 badges, three times each week. Opens IMMEDIATELY.
- ”Trooper Key Soul” in the Frontier Store for 175 frontier coins, no purchase limits. These have been updated to go to your Book of Souls, allowing you to open the dungeon at your leisure.
- Trooper Key Souls are a possible reward from the Mayan Frontier Dungeon.
- Master Key Souls, given out as rare event rewards, may contain a Trooper Key Soul.
- The Lesser Keychain in the Resources tab of the Store contains 3 Trooper Key Souls, for cash.
Once opened, you have a one (1) hour time limit, but no other restrictions. Each run costs 15SoT, and SoT reward drops effectively reduce that over time.
The Achievements
There are six (6) achievements for the Trooper Dungeon, each requiring you to complete an increasing number of runs while using certain characters. The first four achievements use the characters found in the Trooper Souls (purchased with Trooper badges, one soul every four weeks), with the last two involving the new achievement-reward characters. Without taking any reward drops into consideration, you can expect to spend around 2,500 Ironite on SoT to earn both US Cavalry Eddie and Major Malakov.
| Achievement Requirement |
Reward 1 |
Reward 2 |
Reward 3 |
| Clear with Trooper Eddie 300 times. |
25 Ironite |
125/500 Cavalry Fragments |
100/400 Talisman Fragments |
| Clear with Bastion 300 times. |
25 Ironite |
125/500 Cavalry Fragments |
100/400 Talisman Fragments |
| Clear with The Warlord 300 times. |
25 Ironite |
125/500 Cavalry Fragments |
100/400 Talisman Fragments |
| Clear with Lady Azov 300 times. |
25 Ironite |
125/500 Cavalry Fragments |
100/400 Talisman Fragments |
| Clear with US Cavalry Eddie 400 times. |
50 Ironite |
Major Malakhov |
250/400 Talisman Fragments |
| Clear with Major Malahov 600 times. |
100 Ironite |
1 Mythic Soul |
1 Legendary Talisman Soul |
| The following two were added along with the HARD mode update. |
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| Clear HARD with US Cavalry Eddie 300 times. |
150 Ironite |
300/600 Legendary GoldRed Talisman Fragments |
1 Legendary Heroic Soul |
| Clear HARD with Major Malahov 600 times. |
150 Ironite |
300/600 Legendary GoldRed Talisman Fragments |
1 Legendary Heroic Soul |
The Charge Begins
Those achievements are a real long-term goal, requiring an awful lot of runs. So what can we expect to find in terms of reward drops along the way? Given the relatively low difficulty of this dungeon, the rewards tend towards the low/mid-level side of things, with plenty of 2* Colourless Evolution Runes and Shards. The Trooper Dungeon launched not too long after the introduction of cosmic talismans, and offers a guaranteed drop of five 3* Cosmic XP Runes each run, as well as a small chance for the special Black Rain (rare) and Sacred Crown (super rare) cosmic evolution materials. In addition to standard dungeon drops like Skill Shards, Ironite, and Frontier Coins, you can obtain Warrior Soul Fragments and the dungeon-exclusive Trooper Talismans.
After tracking the drops from hundreds of individual runs, I’m reasonably confident I’ve cracked the drop patterns. One of the first things we noticed was the variation in 3* Cosmic XP Rune drop sizes. They were always in stacks of either x5, x7, or x9. The second thing we noticed was the XP Rune stack size correlated with the number of other rewards that dropped each run. My initial theory was the XP Rune drop size determined how many other rewards were rolled for, but a far simpler pattern would be to always have four extra rewards, with an additional 2 XP Runes being a potential drop in their own right. The third thing we noticed was the rewards are split into two groups, one with the shards and runes and the other with the more exiting rewards. Two rewards are picked from each group, and double-ups are possible. The fourth thing we noticed was the Black Rain and Sacred Crown evo materials do not follow this pattern, but instead have their own independent chance to drop each run as a bonus, which appears to be standard behaviour for most of the dungeons we’ve looked at so far.
Still not completely sure how best to visualise our results but a simple chart is likely the simplest way for now. Anyway, here is how I believe the Trooper Dungeon's reward algorithm functions, along with my bulk drop data from 602 runs. Realistically, the bulk data is likely to be the more useful chart, as it shows roughly what proportions and numbers you might expect from your own runs over time. As always, RNG is RNG, and your experience may vary.
But On This Battlefield
The Trooper Dungeon currently only has one stage, labelled Normal. It is slightly more difficult than the Hard stages in event dungeon, due to various annoying enemy passives. All enemies, other than the final boss, have the same offensive-focuses stat boosts and do not wear any talismans. The US Calvary Eddie wears a max-level Trooper set and a low-level Invisibility cosmic. Here are the five waves you'll be facing:
Time for an Unnecessarily Long and Detailed Explanation
Feel free to skip over this if you're an experienced player, as you will most likely be able to steam-roll this dungeon without any trouble at all. As long as you have some combination of buff removal, permadeath, passive disable, or corruption, you'll be fine.
Wave 1 – Don’t get cold feet.
- The Cannoneer - This Gunner starts the battle with the Sacrifice buff, and can gain Perfect Immortality if ever given the Critical Hit buff. If given the chance to attack, he can dish out various debuffs like Crave and Seal.
- Warrior War Golem - This little fellow can't do much, but he will inflict Perfect Heal Block with his basic, and Stun after Removing Immunity effects with his power move.
- Magus Crimean Soldier - All the Crimean Soldiers have annoying passive abilities, and the Magus variety is no exception. Every turn his passive Removes Immunity and Freezes an enemy. His abilities inflict a variety of debuffs, and his power move threatens to permanently Freeze all his enemies. Make sure you bring a way to avoid being frozen, or at the very least multiple ways to remove it quickly.
Wave 2 – Quick & Simple
- Magus War Golem – As weak as they look, although able to inflict Perfect Crave and Marks with their power move.
- Trooper Eddie – One of the most iconic versions of the classic Eddie mascot, he poses little challenge here. He is a support-oriented character, able to cleanse, heal, and buff his allies. Bringing a way to handle Immortality, Endure, Perfect Immunity, and Heal Shield will speed things up.
Wave 3 – Let slip the dogs of war.
- Gunner Crimean Soldier – The yellow Crimean Soldier specialises in Sleep and removing shields. If you don’t end the fight quickly, they can give themselves Perfect Immunity and Perfect Heal Shields.
- Warrior Death Dog – This good boy has an Immortality-style passive. Unless you have Permadeath, or disable the passive, you will have to kill him twice. His power move can give his whole team Immunity.
- The Cannoneer – You’ve already seen this character in the first wave. If you’re not using AOE attacks, kill him first to minimise the effect of the Sacrifice buff.
- Assassin Death Dog – The purple dog’s passive will remove all buffs from up to two enemies each turn, and his attack can disable passives. Be careful if you’re relying on using buffs here.
Wave 4 – This is no time for a nap!
- Sentinel Crimean Soldier – The green Crimean Soldier’s passive silences enemies, gives himself Perfect Hit, and protects his team from burns. He can remove Immunity, inflict Perfect Disable, Perfect Silence, and grant buffs such as Invincibility, Increased Accuracy, and Critical Strike Chance. Perfect Immunity, or Passive Disable will help counter his effects.
- Major Malakhov – Major Malakhov is the warrior character in the Crimean Soldier cycle, and one of the two achievement characters you can earn in the Trooper Dungeon. His basic can inflict Time Bombs and grant Perfect Heal Shields, while his power ability sacrifices 100% of his HP to deal the same amount of true damage to all enemies. An extreme move, but his gimmick revolves around dying and coming back to life with explosive effect. When he dies, he removes all buffs and inflicts Perfect Sleep, Perfect Crave, and Perfect Death on all enemies. He revives with full HP and gives his team Magic Charge. Permadeath effects will stop him from reviving, but you will still have to deal with his death debuffs. Make sure you have a talisman/passive-based way to deal with the Perfect Sleep.
- Undead Crimean Soldier – The purple Undead Crimean Soldier starts the fight with Endure, and can give his allies Lifesteal and Regen. His power move can deal high damage at the cost of his own HP.
Wave 5 – The gang joins the Crimean War.
- The Warlord – This unfortunate fellow is a single target damager. His passive removes a buff from each enemy at the start of the fight, and he gains Perfect Immortality if he starts a turn with Perfect Immunity, which he will due to US Cavalry’s passive and Trooper talismans. His basic can inflict Silence, Blind, or Mark, and Reduced Max HP. His power move inflicts Ghost, which can occasionally lead to defeats if your Eddie gets turned into a ghost and you can’t deal with it in time.
- Bastion – The sentinel character from the Trooper Souls, Bastion is a support character, able to heal, buff with Accuracy Up, Revenge, and Counterstrike, and revive his defeated teammates. He is immune to stuns himself, while his basic has a chance to stun an enemy. Permadeath effects will be useful here.
- US Cavalry Eddie – The BOSS of this dungeon, the special edition variant of the Trooper Eddie, wears Trooper and Invisibility talismans, and can provide a bit of a challenge. Like all special edition characters, he has a passive instead of a fury attack. His passive overlaps somewhat with the Trooper talismans, providing Perfect Immunity and Echo to his allies, and reducing the damage they take. It also causes him to cleanse and heal his team if he attacks while having Perfect Hit active, which he can gain from his Present Basic attack. All his other abilities are the same as the regular Trooper Eddie. The Trooper talismans provide Perfect Immunity and Echo to his team whenever he takes damage, and the Invisibility talisman will occasionally give him Vanish after he attacks. Buff removal and Perfect Corruption will be helpful here, especially if you are unable to brute force your way through this wave.
- Baroness Redan – This gunner character (who is now a Frontier Coin exclusive), can hit awfully hard for someone not wearing any talismans. She starts the fight with Perfect Immunity, Critical Strike Chance, and Revenge. She deals multi-hit magic damage, and can stun, remove buffs, heal allies, and grant extra turns to an ally. She deals more damage against enemies with high ATK and DEF stats. If you are using Starfire talismans, the reflected damage from one of her power attack is often enough to defeat her whole team.
- Lady Azov - Another Trooper Soul character, Lady Azov is a single-target attacker, able to remove buffs and heal her team. Her power move grants her Echo and Vanish, but not an extra turn, making it a mostly wasted move. Her passive gives her a chance to gain Invincibility, Immunity, or Immortality when she takes damage.
No One Wins
And finally, we arrive at team recommendations. There are two schools of thought when it comes to the achievement character runs: using all four of the Trooper characters at once requires fewer runs overall at the cost of slower runs, while a fast mixed team doubles the number of runs you’ll need but allows you to get the most out of each of the time-limited keys.
Despite starting this guide in December 2019, I kept delaying it with the hope of finding some secret team combination that would allow for fast runs using a full achievement team. As the achievement characters are all single target, you would need to find an AOE-Eddie capable of destroying each wave in one hit. Most of my attempts failed miserably, unable to break the 60s barrier. However, I’m pleased to announce, many months later, I have finally found the key to the Trooper Dungeon full achievement run. Max Awakened Cyborg & Cyborg Cosmic. His passive turns all his abilities into pseudo-aoe attacks, his Fury will annihilate everything in one hit, and the cosmic provides immunity to Perfect Sleep (Serenity talismans would also work). He even beat my previous mixed-team record, and gave me a 39s average time. While not a beginner-friendly character to acquire by any stretch, he will greatly assist advanced players working through older content.
| Username |
Team Recommendation |
| Azagthor - Me |
Max Cyborg Eddie – Valhalla/Cyborg Cosmic
Trooper Eddie – in the backseat
Lady Azov – Forge
Bastion – Doesn’t matter, something supportive.
Warlord - Starfire |
| General Recommendation |
Gambler Eddie
Killer Prime |
| Alternate |
Number of the Beast Eddie
Gunner Minotaur |
| Harry’s Cheat Sheet #1 |
Number of the Beast Eddie - Yin/Yang
Warlord - Starfire
Bastion - Frontier
Lady Azov - Serenity/Vampiric |
| Harry’s Cheat Sheet #2 |
Trooper Eddie - Viper
Bastion - Frontier
Lady Azov - Labyrinth
Warlord - Reaper - Sustaining |
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My Parting Breath
Well folks, you now know more about the Trooper Dungeon than you'll ever need or want. Get in there and earn those characters! As always, tell me what I've missed, or if I've got something wrong. I couldn't do this without your feedback or the collaborative nature of this community. Thank you!
