Hound Waves Made Easy - Don't Starve Together Guides

Hound waves are the first real threat that you have to learn how to deal with in Don't Starve Together. There are dozens of ways to deal with hounds and I am going to talk about some of the best methods on this page. If you are completely new to the game, my early advice is to use Beefalo herds to kill the hounds (and only hounds). Don't try to use Beefalo for Deerclops or Bearger because they will die... miserably.

Aside from Beefalo, something you may not know about is that you can actually out run the hounds and leave them behind in another area. They will not despawn but you can safely get away and deal with them at a later time. Facing the hounds on your own terms makes a big difference than when you're ambushed by them randomly.

When it comes to actually dealing with the hounds I have identified 3 really good strategies that I find work best for me personally. Beefalo are typically my go-to for the early game until I can make Catapults in multiple areas across the world and Tooth Traps. Yes, Beefalo are nice but they are in one spot and you have to visit them each time hounds are coming.

This still requires you to go out of your way and run over to the Beefalo before the hounds arrive. For me that was still a problem because I wanted something more expedient that didn't require me to plan ahead to deal with the hounds. If I just got back from a cave spelunkin adventure I didn't want to be in a situation where hounds were going to arrive in 5min but I really wanted to offload my inventory and organize my loot... but I can't because hounds and blah blah. What I wanted is to eliminate their threat entirely so this is the plan I came up with.

Normally I build a hound trap around each of my bases and around my prime farming areas that I spend a lot of time in. There are a few forests I like for Logs and Flint, Stone etc when the trees turn to stone and of course the Swamp and Deserts which each have resources you need too.

From what I have observed, Tooth Traps are typically too expensive for a long while. Unless you get a Varg Farm up and running it's very unlikely you'll get enough Tooth Traps to set them up all around the world in multiple locations until day 500+. This makes Catapults the option I recommend most for people because it's affordable and easy. All you have to do is switch to Winona once you have the resources you need and build what needs to be built. Then any character can use the Catapults from then on out - you only need Winona to build them.

Catapult farm using GEMerators instead of Nitre

I recommend you use the Nitre Generators in most locations because Nitre is not used for much in this game and you typically end up with a lot of it. Gems are a lot harder to get your hands on and much like Tooth Traps you won't get a lot of them until you do a Varg Farm. Or at least until you've played the game for awhile.

At each location I normally make 3 different generators along with two fires - one Fire Pit and one Endothermic Fire Pit. Next to the fires I build chests that hold kindling to light the fires and I will typically build a chest for Nitre nearby too. Alternatively, you can put the Nitre in the chest next to the Endothermic Fire Pit since that pit uses Nitre.

You'll also want to make an Ice Flingomatic because during Summer and Autumn you'll get Fire Hounds which will light everything on fire nearby when they die. Thankfully, you fuel the Ice Flingomatic with Nitre - this is another reason I recommend Nitre Catapults instead of gems.

When hounds are coming you'll want to drop 2 Nitre into each Generator and then kite the hounds around the area until they're all dead. You can make the kiting process easier by tearing up the ground and placing Cobblestone in the surrounding area - like you see in my screenshots.

Important: If there are Fire Hounds in the wave that attacks you switch on the Ice Flingomatic until the hounds are dead then turn it off. Make sure you turn it off (right click it) otherwise it will consume all of the power and you'll have to refuel it when you return next time. Refuel it with Nitre.

One unique twist on the Catapult idea that I have seen people do is to create invulnerable walls that the hounds can't get through (you can replace the Catapults with Houndius Shootius too). This is done during the Varg Farm as well but I don't like doing it here for hound waves. The reason I don't like doing the indestructable walls for hound waves is because it takes a lot of time to make them and there's really no point. You can easily kite the hounds around in circles for a few seconds as the Catapults destroy them. There's no need for indestructable walls.

If you are interested in making these indestructable walls you'll want to use either End Tables or a Pawn Statue to do it. Both of these objects work for what we are trying to accomplish - it really comes down to which resources you feel like farming more and/or if you feel like dealing with the weight mechanic that Statues have.

We talked about it at the top of this page but the final method of dealing with hounds that I like is setting up Tooth Traps across the world. You'll be surprised at how effective these traps are - it takes 3 traps per normal hound and 10 per Varglet. How many hounds you get per wave depends on your difficulty and what day you're on (the first few hound attacks have significantly less hounds).

Tooth Traps in my opinion are better than Catapults but the issue with them is the cost. You can get hound teeth in this game by following tracks until you discover a Varg and then either creating a Varg Farm with it or fighting it normally and killing a lot of hounds. Of course the most obvious way to get teeth is by killing all the hound waves too. If you setup the Tooth Traps though and exclusively use them you'll use more teeth than you get in return.

So, you're faced with two real options. Use Beefalo/Catapults until you get to day 500+ and have a ton of teeth. Or you can do a Varg hunt/farm and earn teeth that way. The reason I like these Tooth Traps the best is because there's no need for a flingo-matic since the traps can't be destroyed with fire.

Build a Fire Pit and an Endothermic Fire Pit in the area and then place traps all around them until you've put down a solid amount surrounding the fires. That's all there is to it - you've got your hound trap.

 

Other Tips & Tricks

- You can use Houndius Shootius instead of Catapults for really any of these farms.

- Make sure you put Cobblestone Roads down around your Catapults so that you can easily out run the Hounds.

- If you're not using an Addon like Insight to track the Hound Timers my advice is to build one Hound Trap in every other biome on the map (make sure you're always within 1-2min walk of a Hound Trap).