These days, the second I boot up DNF Mobile, it feels like my muscle memory just takes over.

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At some point I caught myself thinking, "Am I playing this way too brain-off?" so I tried mapping out what my brain looks like these days. And if you're the same kind of dungeonnam—a guy who's seriously into DNF—yours is probably pretty similar.

6 a.m.

This is the magical hour when your Fatigue refills.

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At the start of the season, I looked forward to this so much I'd literally wake up on my own for it. (I wasn't even this disciplined in the military.) It's not quite that bad now, but even these days, if I open my eyes on a day off, my first thought is still, "Food... no, wait, should I burn Fatigue first?"

Thursday maintenance

Elite Dungeons were recently patched so at least 1 Light Epic is guaranteed

After Thursday maintenance—aka DUNday—all your weekly content entries reset. Calamity Dungeon, Raid, plus Elite Dungeons and Weekly Dungeons too.

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Elite and Weekly Dungeons are especially the most hype part of the week, since Epic gear almost always drops and the odds for Exceed gear are high too. So every Thursday morning, I naturally start thinking, "Alright, what am I getting today?"

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And then my brain moves straight into the next phase.

I want a usable Exceed
It feels like Elite should've dropped one for me by now

The Exceed Elting Bracelet that changed my Elemaster's fate

This is easily one of the thoughts I have most once Thursday maintenance hits.

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These days, the thing I want most is for the best possible Exceed gear to drop for my characters.

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My main, Elemaster, got lucky and already picked up both the armor and bracelet I wanted, so now all that's left is the earring. Every time I run Elite Dungeon, it's the same loop: "Maybe this is the run?" and then "Yep... not this time either."

When am I doing Hard Asmar this week

Hard Asmar in Calamity Dungeon is one of those modes where once you start, it's fun to just ride the momentum and keep going, so even deciding when to run it has become part of my routine.

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If I've got time, I'll do Elite on DUNday and go straight into Hard Asmar. But most of the time, I run it on weekend evenings. If I'm too busy, I save it all for Wednesday night. Maybe because there are so many office-worker players, that's also when the population feels highest and party matching works the best.

Should I go for a full Male Mage set

This guy's suspiciously lucky. Please chill

I've already got a ton of characters I'm raising, so I was only planning to build Male Mage casually, but it's way more fun than I expected, and now I'm actually torn.

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Swift Master especially has already gotten 2 Exceeds, so I keep thinking, "Is this the game telling me to raise him?" Meanwhile, I've got alts that have been farming for 2 months and still haven't seen a single Exceed.

Is today's dev note not up yet?

February's went up pretty early

The DNF Mobile developer note gives us a heads-up on upcoming events and updates. Since the game gets one big update every month, once that time rolls around I naturally start refreshing the official site like, "Is today's dev note not up yet?"

The dev note for Proving Grounds needs to go up soon too

Proving Grounds is scheduled to be added in February, and from what I vaguely heard, I think it's supposed to be guild content, so I'm pretty excited. It's been a really long time since we got guild content—basically since Dream Maze.

Should I crack some boxes

This is the thought that suddenly pops up when I've done everything and I'm just kind of idling around in DNF. If I open Sealed Locks and hit this month's item, that's 200,000 to 600,000 Terra, so yeah, the dopamine goes kind of crazy.

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The Liberation Keys you need for Sealed Locks can be collected through daily achievements (quests) and the Mystery Shop. I've been stockpiling them like a Spirit Bomb for the last few months, and I think I'm close to 1,000 now. So if this month's item changes to something else, I'm probably spending them immediately. I'm already getting hyped just thinking about it.

Wrapping up

Laying it all out like this, a pretty huge chunk of my brain is apparently occupied by DNF Mobile.

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Waiting for 6 a.m. Counting down to Thursday. Constantly craving Exceeds.

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But honestly, that's probably just what it means to really enjoy a game—and why I've been with it for almost 4 years.