Gameplay Strategies

This is the page for , put together by the Diep.io community. Please do not add class-specific, gamemode-specific or builds on this page. This page aims to provide general information about gameplay elements of Diep.io, while at the same time acting as a useful guide for new players.

General Tips

 * When you spawn in, consider farming off polygons first. Only spam bullets when you know it won't attract any attention to you.
 * Try to play passive and don't try to fight a tank you can't win against.
 * Early on, avoid going to the middle area, where the Pentagon Nest is, as it could be flooded with stronger players.
 * In Free For All, Survival, Maze and Sandbox, your tank and ammunition are colored blue, while your opponents' tanks and ammunition are colored red.
 * In 2 Teams and Domination, there is a red team and a blue team. Tanks cannot harm members of their own team.
 * In 4 Teams and Tag, there is a red team, a blue team, a green team and a purple team. Tanks cannot harm members of their own team.
 * Remember to avoid bullets, as it can save your life if you are low on health.
 * Always expect that someone is watching you and always be ready in case someone starts shooting at you.
 * Use invisibility to ambush tanks and to hide.
 * It is recommended not to attack any tank, except for tanks at a much lower level, until you have reached level 22.
 * Avoid bumping into opponent tanks. Tanks will look exactly the same, whether they have high Body Damage or low Body Damage, so you can't tell which tanks can kill you just by bumping into you. Unless your tank will deal high Body Damage, avoid touching other tanks.
 * An easy way to check body damage tanks is to look for signs. These signs include:
 * Low stats such as Bullet Speed, Bullet Penetration, and Movement Speed.
 * What type of tank they are and how it corresponds to use (i.e Landmine tends to have very high Body Damage)
 * The damage they take from bullets is lower than normal.
 * They do not care about colliding with polygons.

Controls

 * You move with the WASD or arrow keys.
 * You aim by moving the mouse.
 * You can fire with left-click or the spacebar.
 * Classes from the Overseer branch have drones which will follow the mouse instead of firing when Auto-Fire is on.
 * The Auto-3 and Auto-5 will allow the player to half-control nearby barrels.
 * Right-click or Shift causes drones and Auto-3/Auto-5 barrels to point away from the mouse.
 * The Predator can move its FoV towards the mouse by clicking the right mouse button(MOUSE 2).
 * You can press E to activate Auto-Fire, making your tank automatically fire.
 * You can press C to activate Auto-Spin, making your tank slowly spin around.
 * You can put in points without clicking by using the 1-8 keys. Hotkeys are shown as below.
 * Health Regen - 1
 * Maximum Health - 2
 * Body Damage - 3
 * Bullet Speed - 4
 * Bullet Penetration - 5
 * Bullet Damage - 6
 * Reload - 7
 * Movement Speed - 8
 * You can use U + (number) to queue 1 stat upgrade.
 * You can use M + (number) to queue 7 (or 10) stat upgrades.
 * Tap U twice to remove all queued upgrades when not looking at them.
 * You can hold L to see your ping(latency), and which country your server is being held in, along with your Gamemode.
 * You can hold Y in-game to see the tank upgrade tree.

The HUD (Heads-Up Display)

 * Below the words "This is the tale of" is where you can type your tank's name.
 * Pressing Enter will start the game regardless if you have entered a name or not
 * Clicking one of the 8 buttons at the top will change your Gamemode. There are currently 8: Free For All, Survival, 2 Teams, 4 Teams, Domination, Tag, Maze and Sandbox.
 * Upon entering the game, your HUD appears:
 * At the top-right is the Scoreboard;
 * Free For All, Maze and Survival: The leaderboard is shown, showing the names and score of the top 10 players in the server.
 * 2 Teams and 4 Teams: Same as above, but players' score is displayed as their team's color.
 * Tag Mode: The number of players in each team is shown.
 * Domination: Nothing is shown, as score doesn't matter in this game mode.
 * At the bottom-right is the Map.
 * Above the Map, the number of people currently playing Diep.io worldwide is shown.
 * At the lower middle is your Score bar, Level bar, and your Name. In your Level bar, it says 'Level [player level] [class] (ie. 'Level 32 Tri-Angle').
 * And finally, at the bottom-left are your stats. You can spend any of the 33 Skill Points you gain on any of the eight stats listed. Some stats benefit certain classes more than others. See Builds for more info.

Projectiles

 * There are three main projectiles in the game, the Bullet, the Drone and the Trap.
 * Another kind of projectile, the Missile, was added with the March 2nd update, alongside the then unnamed Skimmer.


 * Each type of projectile has health, which is not displayed.
 * If a projectile collides with another projectile, the projectile both take damage.
 * All projectiles do damage upon touching a polygon, a tank or another projectile.
 * When a projectile does damage, it consumes their health, turning that health into damage.
 * That would mean a projectile can live if it has more health than the target.
 * Projectiles also give knockback when collided into.

Bullet

 * The Bullet is the projectile fired by most tanks, such as the Basic Tank, the Twin and the Machine Gun.
 * The Bullet takes the appearance of a (usually) small circle.
 * The Bullet is not manually controlled and can only be fired in the direction your tank's cannon is facing.
 * Bullets despawn after travelling for 3 seconds. The distance covered can be increased by putting points into Bullet Speed.
 * Bullet Damage can be upgraded to do more damage to your target.
 * Upgrading Bullet Penetration gives Bullets more health.

Drone

 * The Drone is a projectile exclusive to the Overseer Branch, the Hybrid, and the Overtrapper.
 * They take the appearance of a triangle (or square).
 * Drones have infinite range and only despawn after taking enough damage.
 * Drones have two modes, Automatic and Manual.
 * Automatic is the default mode of the drones.
 * Drones in this mode attack nearby polygons and tanks but do not attack projectiles.
 * The Hybrid and Overtrapper drones are always in Automatic mode.
 * Manual is activated by holding left-click or spacebar, or while using Auto-Fire.
 * Drones will move towards your mouse in this state.
 * By holding right-click or Shift, the Drones will move away from your mouse.
 * Most drone-controlling classes have a limit to the number of drones they can control at a time.
 * When drones are destroyed, they will respawn from the drone user's spawner.
 * Putting points into Reload decreases the time between new drones spawning in, but this is unrecommended, as drones don't take very long to respawn anyways.
 * The Necromancer does not respawn drones in this way drones. Instead, it creates drones by touching squares.

Trap

 * The Trap is another projectile unique to the Trapper branch.
 * Unlike bullets, instead of despawning when they reach their maximum amount of range, they instead lose all of their velocity and lay on the floor, lasting for a short while before despawning.
 * They work like bullets, having their health reduced if shot at, reducing their damage done. They also do damage upon touching them.
 * The Bullet Speed for traps is drastically reduced to the point where it requires to be an extreme close-range in order to damage the targets. Bullet Speed still affects their range slightly.
 * There are three variants of Traps.
 * The Small Trap has a small hitbox and lower health, but can easily cover an area. This type of trap is used by the Trapper, the Tri-Trapper, Overtrapper and Auto Trapper.
 * The second is the Regular Trap, which has a bigger hitbox and more health than the Small Trap, but has a decreased lifespan. This type of trap is exclusive to the Gunner Trapper.
 * The last type of Trap is the Mega Trap, having the largest hitbox, highest damage, but the shortest lifespan. This type of trap is exclusive to the Mega Trapper.

Missile

 * The Missile is a projectile that is only used by the Skimmer, due to its being the only tank that has a Deployer.
 * They look like Destroyer Bullets, except they have small Cannons on their flanks that shoot out small Bullets.
 * When shot out of the Deployer, they have very little recoil, so using this tank is not recommended if you are going for a rammer build.
 * When you upgrade your Bullet Stats, they apply to the Missile as well as its Bullets.