Deskrawl: Idle ARPG lets you manage heroes directly from the bottom edge of your desktop screen while farming loot and pushing through dungeon zones. While the pre-launch demo only permitted players to experience the Warrior, the full launch build features four distinct playable classes: Warrior, Sorcerer, Monk, and Hunter.
Understanding how to manage multiple classes is one of the most effective ways to accelerate your account's progression. Thanks to multi-character slot support, shared account systems, and multi-class gear drops, running alternate characters can significantly broaden your build possibilities.
How Multiple Character Slots Work in Deskrawl
When Deskrawl expanded past its early demo builds, patch 0.1.13 introduced dedicated character slots, allowing you to create and maintain multiple heroes on a single account without overwriting existing save files.
The game provides four character slots, matching the exact number of available launch classes. This means you can create one of each class and switch between them whenever you return to the main menu or character selection screen.
When creating any new hero, you must choose between two modes:
- Online Mode: Allows interaction with the Steam Community Market, public leaderboards, and trading features.
- Offline Mode: A local-only single-player experience. Note that offline characters cannot trade on the market or transfer items to the online economy.
If your goal is to trade rare item drops or minion reins on the Steam Market, make sure every character you spin up is created under the Online mode setting.
Shared Account Systems: Bank, Gear, and Life Skills
Managing multiple classes in Deskrawl is made considerably easier because progression is not completely isolated to a single character. Several core systems extend across your roster:
Shared Bank Storage
The town hub features a storage chest where you can deposit spare loot, consumables, and crafting reagents. This vault is shared across your characters, functioning as a central distribution depot. If your primary farmer finds a high-tier legendary bow or caster staff while clearing stages, you do not have to sell it to Granny or dismantle it at the blacksmith. Instead, you can place it in the chest and retrieve it on your alternate hero.
Shared Life Skills Tree
Unlike the combat talent tree, which is tailored to each hero's unique ability rows, the Life Skills tree offers utility upgrades for your entire idle operation. Players have confirmed that Life Skill progress carries over across characters. Investments into carriage auto-loot filters, automatic equipment selling upon returning to town, potion auto-refill triggers, extra cart capacity, and bonus item find percentages streamline the leveling phase when starting a secondary character.
Cross-Class Equipment Rules
Loot in Deskrawl drops with specific equip requirements printed on the item tooltip:
- Weapons: Many weapons are locked to a specific archetype, such as bows for Hunters. However, certain weapons can be shared across classes. For example, specific legendary two-handed blades list usability for both "Warrior, Sorcerer," while community feedback notes that Warriors, Mages, and Monks share selected melee base types.
- Armor and Jewelry: Rings, amulets, belts, and armor pieces can generally be swapped into the shared stash as long as the receiving character meets the required level threshold.
- Minions and Reins: Boss reins and companions haul loot and grant passive buffs across your runs. Rare reins can be utilized to boost combat efficiency and speed up early-game leveling on alternate heroes.
Overview of the Four Classes
To plan your roster, it helps to understand how each archetype performs, their primary build paths, and their community standing.
| Class | Combat Range | Primary Stat / Build Archetypes | Gear & Sharing Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warrior | Melee | Thorns, Crit into Vulnerable, Max HP scaling | Can share some weapons with Sorceress and Monks; durable idle kit |
| Sorcerer | Ranged | Intelligence; Fire AoE, Frost control, Level 45 Lightning Storm | Uses staves/caster blades; high mana hunger; fast area clearing |
| Monk | Melee | Dodge, Crit conversion, Light damage and shield mechanics | Can share some weapons with Warriors and Mages; relies on avoidance over flat armor stacking |
| Hunter | Ranged | Dexterity; Physical, Poison, Arcane arrow builds | Uses bows; cannot use melee-exclusive weapons; high burst, low baseline HP |
Warrior
The Warrior is the most thoroughly tested class in Deskrawl, having served as the sole hero during the June demo. Its combat kit revolves around three ability rows: Basic Attack (Valiant Strike, Sweep Strike, Blood Strike), Strong Attack (Flame Strike, Half Moon Strike, Whirlwind), and Utility (Rage Shield, Rage Shout).
The class excels at sustained, low-maintenance idle farming. Community builds primarily center around Thorns damage (bolstered by the Vicious Thorns talent to trigger critical hits) or critical hit setups targeting Vulnerable enemies. Because of its reliable damage mitigation via Rage Shield, the Warrior led the game's launch-day Inferno difficulty clears.
Sorcerer
Known as the Mage during closed beta testing, the Sorcerer utilizes Fire, Ice, and Lightning spells to wipe out incoming mob packs before they reach melee range. Early progression relies heavily on Fireball and freezing utility to control space.
Beta and launch guides highlight a major power spike at level 45, where unlocking Lightning Storm in the Strong Attack row provides rapid automated clearing. However, the class consumes mana rapidly, requiring players to invest heavily into mana regeneration talents, mana potions, or mana-generating minions (such as the Spider). If a pack survives the initial burst on high-tier stages, the Sorcerer's low defensive baseline can lead to quick deaths.
Monk
Added to the roster during late beta testing, the Monk combines close-quarters strikes with evasion. Rather than building purely into raw armor and health, Monk guides emphasize stacking Dodge chance, which later talent nodes convert into Critical Hit Damage while restoring mana on successful evasions.
Community discussions on the Steam forums note that the Monk requires careful setup. Some players have reported targeting logic quirks where specific skills can whiff if mob packs move unexpectedly, meaning the class demands more hands-on gear optimization than the Warrior.
Hunter
The Hunter—often referred to as the Ranger or Archer by the community—skipped the public demo and beta, debuting alongside the full release. The Hunter utilizes Physical, Poison, and Arcane bow attacks, capable of picking off enemies at extreme range before they even fully render on the desktop viewport.
While its single-target and ranged burst damage are high, the Hunter has the lowest defensive buffer in the game. Launch-week community feedback also notes that finding early-game class-specific weapon drops can take longer compared to classes that share melee weapon pools. Running a Hunter as a secondary class—using a higher-level character to farm materials or stashed items—mitigates this early equipment barrier.
Strategy: Farming on One Class to Power Up Another
Because progress between characters is linked through the town chest and Life Skills, you do not need to level every hero at the same rate. A common progression strategy involves using a dedicated farmer to finance alternate heroes:
- Establish an Anchor Farmer: Start with a stable, survivable character like the Warrior or an AoE clearer like the Sorcerer. Push through early maps to unlock town vendors (the Blacksmith, Alchemist, and Jeweler) and establish basic gold income.
- Upgrade Account Life Skills: Direct excess gold into your Life Skills tree. Unlocking automated gear selling, carriage item filters, and potion refills makes leveling subsequent heroes significantly faster.
- Stash Off-Class Legendaries: When your main character finds powerful bows, agility jewelry, or shared legendary weapons, place them directly into the town storage chest.
- Farm Skulls for Boss Encounters: Skulls dropped from regular map stages act as entry keys for boss levels. Defeating bosses drops valuable legendary gear and minion reins (such as the Bloodmoon Werewolf or Ancient Oak Treant). Equipping an alt with a spare minion provides substantial passive stat boosts right from level 1.
- Jump-Start the Alternate Class: When switching to a new class slot, retrieve your saved gear and potions from the chest to bypass early equipment bottlenecks.
Class Achievements and the Endgame
If you are aiming for complete achievement completion, playing all four classes is mandatory. Deskrawl features 37 Steam achievements, including individual "Pinnacle" milestones for every class:
- Pinnacle: Warrior: Beat Inferno difficulty as a Warrior.
- Pinnacle: Sorcerer: Beat Inferno difficulty as a Sorcerer.
- Pinnacle: Monk: Beat Inferno difficulty as a Monk.
- Pinnacle: Hunter: Beat Inferno difficulty as a Hunter.
Beating Inferno on one character does not retroactively unlock the achievement for the other three. Each class must independently progress through the difficulty tiers and complete its own Inferno clear to claim the full set of badges.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I play multiple classes without losing my save?
Yes. Deskrawl supports multiple character slots added in patch 0.1.13. You can maintain up to four distinct character profiles simultaneously, allowing you to run one of each class without deleting existing data.
Can different classes trade items between each other?
Yes, provided they are in the same game mode. Placing weapons, armor, gems, or consumables into the town storage chest makes them accessible to any other character on your account. However, always verify class usability and level requirements on weapon tooltips before planning your builds.
Are gold and Life Skills shared between characters?
The Life Skills tree and town storage chest are shared across your account slots. Combat talents and character levels, however, remain strictly unique to each individual hero.
Can an Offline character send gear to an Online character?
No. Online and Offline character modes are completely segregated to protect leaderboard integrity and the Steam Market economy. Items obtained by an Offline character cannot be placed into an Online character's shared inventory or sold on the community market.
