Dome Keeper: How to Beat the Heavy Hitters Assignment

To beat the Heavy Hitters assignment in Dome Keeper, equip the Sword Dome and invest your earliest iron into Stab Damage I and II, followed by blade length and extension speed. Because this modifier replaces ranged harassment with dense waves of high-health melee monsters that rush directly into your dome, you need high single-target burst damage and enough reach to intercept chargers before physical contact occurs.

How the Heavy Hitters Assignment Changes Combat

Heavy Hitters strips away ranged enemies like flying snipers and ground mortars, replacing standard attack cycles with swarms of melee bruisers. Every enemy is a direct impact threat that inflicts heavy hull damage on contact.

Because none of the monsters hang back, waves reach your base faster than in standard encounters. You have a much shorter reaction window once the combat siren sounds, and passive or low-damage defenses quickly fail against brute-force attrition. You must intercept and eliminate every target before it touches the dome's outer boundary.

Sword Dome Upgrade Priority

The Sword Dome suits all-melee waves because its linear stab delivers concentrated burst damage to armored rushers. A short, unupgraded blade forces you to wait until monsters are right next to the glass, leaving almost no room for error when multiple brutes charge at once.

Spend your early iron on reaching tier-two stab damage before buying secondary weapon upgrades. Use this progression to keep pace with wave scaling:

Sword Timing and Physical Interception

Surviving melee rushes requires deliberate thrust timing rather than constant swinging:

1. Aim toward the most pressured flank: Point the sword tip at the side facing the closest immediate threat.
2. Stab at maximum extension range: Thrust right as a charging monster enters your outer reach. Stabbing too early locks the blade in cooldown while the enemy closes the gap; stabbing too late lets the monster's momentum carry it into your shield or hull.
3. Block packs with the blade body: When heavy walkers advance in tight groups, keep the blade fully extended to act as a brief physical barrier. This disrupts enemy pathing and staggers incoming brutes long enough for your next attack cycle to reset.
4. Slash to recover space: If a large walker reaches point-blank range, use a rapid horizontal slash to shove it backward, then re-center your aim and finish it with a stab.

Mining Layout and Resource Pacing

Lingering deep underground will cost you the run because melee waves arrive quickly after the warning siren. Build your mine around straight vertical shafts connected by narrow horizontal scout tunnels so you can return to the surface without getting snagged on terrain.

When the battle countdown begins, drop any unrefined materials and ascend immediately. Arriving even two seconds late to a melee wave can lead to severe hull damage.

For mining upgrades and resource handling:

• Upgrade drill power first: Crack hard rock layers quickly so you spend less time digging per trip.
• Increase carry capacity and movement speed next: Haul iron clusters to the surface in fewer trips.
• Deliver iron in small batches: Do not hoard minerals at the bottom of the shaft. Ferry two to four iron at a time directly into the dome converter so you can buy combat and hull upgrades between waves.

Defensive Gadgets and Cobalt Management

Pair the Sword Dome with defensive gadgets like the Shield generator or Stun Laser to manage split-lane attacks. When monsters charge both sides of the dome simultaneously, these gadgets can stall or absorb hits on one flank while you manually stab the largest threat on the other.

Keep a strict reserve of cobalt for dome repairs rather than spending it on optional tech upgrades. Even with careful spacing, late-game heavy waves can slip past your blade and clip the dome. Keeping cobalt ready between waves stops isolated impacts from compounding into a lost run.