Diamonds are what makes DBE a freemium rather than free game: Diamonds are used for a variety of different things in the game, and, while you can find some in-game, you can also buy them with real money.
Other than VIP and the Surprise! goal, there is no difference between found and purchased diamonds.
Free diamonds[]
There are many ways to get free diamonds in the game. For example:
- Elite enemies sometimes drop 10 diamonds
- Elite instance roulettes and multiplayer rounds can drop diamond bags
- Daily quests rated 3 stars and above can give diamonds as a quest reward
- Star chests on instance and elite pages, goal milestones, etc. often have diamonds
- Events often give diamonds
- Routine points give 50 diamonds for 75 rpoints
- Dragon's Lair Answers can give diamonds
- VIP rewards give free diamonds every week
Purchased diamonds[]
The other way to get diamonds is with an In-App Purchase. Click the Get Diamonds link in the top-left corner.
The cost is:
- $2.99 for 88 (3.4¢)
- $9.99 for 300 (3.3¢)
- $24.99 for 800 (3.1¢)
- $49.99 for 1800 (2.8¢)
- $99.99 for 4000 (2.5¢)
VIP[]
The list of VIP privileges is available in-game, so only the key benefits are listed here:
- VIP 1: 60 diamonds ($2.99). Skip combats, auto tourney, and auto-farm instances and elites.
- VIP 2: 1300 diamonds ($49.99). Auto-farm dungeon, no talent/forge cooldowns.
- VIP 3: 2600 diamonds ($79.98). 20 arena attacks instead of 10.
- VIP 4: 8000 diamonds ($199.98).
- VIP 5: 16000 diamonds ($399.96).
- VIP 6: 32000 diamonds ($799.92). Kasumi (a very good 2-gold companion).
- VIP 7: 70000 diamonds ($1799.82).
- VIP 8: 180000 diamonds ($4499.55).
- VIP 9: 360000 diamonds ($8999.10).
- VIP 10: 2000000 diamonds ($49995.00).
In addition to the documented benefits:
- You get some free chests at the start of the game, and occasionally during events, that can only be opened by VIP 1. And inside those chests will be a chest that can only be opened by VIP 2. And so on.
- Many features with diamond costs have a discount based on your VIP level.
- Gear inheritance gives you (50 + VIP*5)% of the difference in forge levels, so a VIP 9 will inherit 95% while a VIP 1 inherits only 55%. (However, this also comes with a disadvantage, because the diamond cost goes up the higher the final inherited level is. And it goes up a lot faster than the VIP discount!)
- After you become a VIP you gain a "V" logo next to your character name.
Tips[]
If you're going to spend $800 on the game, spend it all up-front. Better to get Kasumi (and explore for Ying Chen) early instead of building up lesser comps; better to get the XP bonuses through the whole game instead of only much later; better to get the bonus stats while they still make a huge difference and can help you climb higher in the arena and tourney instead of when they're barely noticeable; etc.
Don't spend diamonds until you see your daily quests and guild quests, because they'll often ask you to, e.g., exploit the altar 4 times, or spend diamonds 5 times, or do 3 diamond guild constructions.
Some of the most useful ways to spend diamonds are:
- Resetting dungeon, Dragon's Lair, and (when you have the stamina) the best page of elites you can beat.
- Guild construction, and maybe contribution (but construction has a chance of giving double the reward).
- Exploring for Ying Chen and Kincade.
- Training.
- Altar exploitation.
- Resetting 1* and 2* daily quests.
- Protection stones, if you plan to do evolution beyond tier 5.
However, the game also gives you a lot of very stupid ways to spend diamonds, and events give you even more. (If you're not sure whether an event is a good way to spend diamonds or not, go to the forum; it's virtually guaranteed that there will be a thread angrily calling it a ripoff if it is.)
Notice that some of them increase in cost the more times you do them per day—for example, altar exploitation is a great deal for the first one at 2 diamonds, but not so much for the 20th at 40 diamonds.