The Warden in Juno
Below the Juperos ruins the old lift keeps going, down into the Veil: a deep place that wears the shapes of the places above it. Veilwarden Odile stands beside Juno's Road Lantern and takes heroes down. The Depths Record Board stands next to her.
There is no other way in. No lantern, caravan or airship goes into the Depths.
Going down
- Bring a party of one to four heroes, each Base Level 99 or above. Solo descents are allowed.
- Each hero stands beside Odile and chooses Ready with the same oath: the warded descent or the unwarded oath (see below).
- The party leader chooses Begin the descent and picks the starting floor: floor 1, or a checkpoint your whole party has earned.
- Clear the floor. The Veil Stair then appears: Descend takes everyone present to the next floor, and Leave the Depths takes you back to Odile with everything you earned.
Floors and tiers
Every floor's monsters are one level deeper than the last, from level 101 on floor 1 to level 175 on floor 75. Every Depths monster carries a Break shield, so Break and Boost matter on every floor. Depths monsters never call for help or summon more monsters: what you see on a floor is what you fight.
| Floors | Tier |
|---|---|
| 1-15 | The Sunken Works |
| 16-30 | The Frozen Choir |
| 31-45 | The Ember Root |
| 46-60 | The Drowned Heaven |
| 61-75 | The Last Dark |
Five kinds of floor
Every block of five floors follows the same pattern, so a party can plan ahead. Each floor has a time limit; running out of time ends the run and returns everyone to Odile, losing only that floor.
- Bosses and Wardens fight in three phases, speak as the fight turns, and use telegraphed patterns that always leave somewhere safe to stand.
- As with an MVP's signature attack, a pattern's hit takes a share of your health whatever your armor, but one pattern can only take so much of your health in all. Anyone held in place (frozen, stunned, asleep, stoned or stopped) takes less, and magic immunity, or being somewhere the boss cannot target you, turns the hit away.
- Clearing a boss floor gives you a checkpoint for the rest of the week. Your starting floor can be any checkpoint you have earned this week, or last week's deepest checkpoint less one tier: the Veil remembers you, but not all of you.
- Teleport, Fly Wings and Memo do not work in the Depths. A Butterfly Wing, your Hearth Lantern or any other way out ends your descent.
| Floor in each block | Kind | What clears it |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Clear | Defeat every pack around the floor |
| 2nd | Hunt | Find and defeat the Marked elites hidden among ordinary monsters |
| 3rd | Hold | Keep at least one hero inside the Veil Stone's circle through every wave; if the circle is left empty too long, the wave starts again |
| 4th | Gauntlet | Defeat a Mythic monster, its retinue and its guards |
| 5th | Boss | Defeat the floor's boss. Every fifteenth floor holds a Warden, the strongest boss of its tier |
The two oaths
| Oath | What happens if you fall |
|---|---|
| The warded descent (the usual way) | The Veil will not let you die. A blow that would kill you leaves you standing and Odile pulls you out. Your descent ends there, but you keep everything you earned, and if your party clears the floor you were carried out of, you share its cache as long as you had helped on it (dealt damage or healed). It is not a Covenant death. |
| The unwarded oath | A death below is a real death, with possession or permanent death as anywhere else. Echoes come more often, and the record board marks you unwarded. Odile refuses the oath while anyone in the party is possessed. |
The weekly Veil
Every week the Veil shifts. It resets on Monday at 00:00 UTC: new modifiers, fresh checkpoints and a fresh record board. Odile stops taking new descents at 23:45 UTC on Sunday, every run is warned five minutes before the reset, and at midnight everyone below is returned to her. Floors cleared before midnight count for the old week.
Each week brings one major and two minor modifiers. Odile names them, and the record board explains them. Harder modifiers make the floors' rewards a little richer.
| Modifier | Kind | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Last Breath | Major | Monsters near death fly into a rage: more damage and faster attacks. |
| Long Night | Major | Every floor is night: monsters are stronger, as on a field at night. |
| Echoing Dead | Major | Fallen monsters leave a burst that erupts a moment later. Step away. |
| Mythic Tide | Major | Marked foes are Mythic, and Gauntlets hold two Mythics. |
| Shifting Elements | Major | Elites and bosses change element and hide their weaknesses again. |
| Thick Shields | Minor | Break shields are thicker, and a Break lasts a little longer. |
| Brittle Guard | Minor | Break shields are thinner, but monsters hit harder. |
| Iron Hide | Minor | Monsters have more defense, but each shows one weakness from the start. |
| Hasty Descent | Minor | Every floor's time limit is a quarter shorter. |
| Bloodied Ground | Minor | Healing you receive is weaker. |
| Pack Hunters | Minor | More monsters on Clear and Hold floors, each worth more experience. |
| Kindled Veil | Minor | Boost builds twice as fast, but monsters have more HP. |
The Veil Cache
Depths monsters drop nothing: no items, cards, runes or Zeny, and there is nothing to steal. Instead, each floor you clear pays its Veil Cache straight into your bag (or by mail from Veilwarden Odile if your bag is full), once per floor each week.
Every floor's cache holds Lantern Glass, with a chance of Echoes and Radiant runes. Boss and Warden floors pay Zeny and better finds, and deeper tiers pay more. Each Break your party lands on a floor improves its cache. Floor 75 always holds a Sovereign Echo; you can take at most two Sovereign Echoes from the Depths each week. The first time you ever clear floor 75, you also receive the Veilborn Circlet, a cosmetic headgear.
To earn a floor's cache and a place on the board, take a real part in clearing it, and be within 20 levels of the floor's monsters. A hero carried out by the ward still shares the floor if they had dealt damage or healed there; standing aside until the ward carries you out earns nothing. A level 120 hero can earn rewards down to floor 40. Clearing a floor again in the same week gives experience only.
The Depths Record Board
- This week's Veil: the three modifiers, what they do, and the time left until the reset.
- Deepest this week: the top ten of each class, by deepest floor, then fastest time, with the party size and an unwarded tag. Your own class is listed first, along with your rank.
- Last week: the top three of each class.
- My record: your best floor and checkpoint this week, the floor you may start from, last week's checkpoint, and the Sovereign Echoes you can still earn.
Before you go
The Depths are the hardest place in Asterveil and are meant to be climbed slowly. Floors give experience, but they are a ladder, not the fastest way to level. Nothing in the Depths counts for the Covenant campaign: no marks, contract kills or roadside clues.