Progression

## It Begins: The New Player Guide

Welcome to the game, hero! Be warned: as a roguelike game, this game is designed to be hard - you will die repeatedly and often in the danger filled dungeons, and have to restart with little to show for it initially. This is the nature of a roguelike game! So, don’t worry about death - it is a natural part of the game.

Not to worry, hero - you can’t really do much wrong in this game - and you will learn just by exploring and playing around. You will accumulate permanent advantages that don’t disappear after you die. After perusing the starter pages Getting Started, Character Selection and Tips & Tricks, this guide will likely greatly accelerate your progress - but if you like to discover things on your own, go ahead - you can always learn more later if you want (or pop back here periodically)! Don’t get overwhelmed by all the game has to offer - you can very much just go into dungeons, increase your skills and stats as you defeat monsters, and use the equipment you find - and you’ll be just fine! You can easily play this game as an old-school arcade style game, like the original Gauntlet - and you will enjoy yourself and still make nice progress.

On the other hand, if you want to delve deep into the mechanics and maximize everything, you can do that too..it isn’t forced upon you though. If you choose that path, and want to learn the secrets and inner workings of the game, take a deep breath and read on. If you’re a min-maxing, intricacies-loving hardcore gamer, you can play this game like a complex RPG, and get legendarily powerful. So, mentally prepare yourself, say goodbye to your friends and family, and read on if you so dare….you have been warned!!

## Table of Contents, and Overview of Progression

As above - read on only if you don’t want to discover the game intricacies for yourself, and want to play at a “not casual” level (I.e. say goodbye to your loved ones, they will probably be seeing you less…) You will still progress and have fun without this level of intricacy…if you read on, be ready, because you can play this game at a high complexity level if you want…but it is NOT REQUIRED.

Now, as you have chosen the way of madness, onwards into the depths and complexity of all this game has to offer! PURELY OPTIONAL, and you have been warned - this game offers a lot of depth and sophisticated game mechanics to keep you entertained for hundreds of hours of game time…but only if you WANT it!

As the game progresses, you will keep more and more PERMANENT and potent advantages that never leave even when you die, including stats, skills, pets and upgrades to the fortress - using the Obsidian Tower for quick gold/crystals, experience and Equipment farming methods, including Armor and Weapons - in fact you carry over ***so*** much from run-to-run that some might even call it a rogue “light” game! You will get player storage chests in the camp, in which to keep your second-best full equipment set, so that if (WHEN) you die next, you will be able to instantly gear up.

As you enter the middle game and hit the 450 armor cap, reducing damage taken by 90 percent, you will start to be able to stop most death almost entirely, by carrying several of the passive item “cross of life”; allowing you to safely custom-Enchant and upgrade equipment at the Blacksmith with much less fear of suddenly losing that gear you have now spent millions of gold on. You will use your rare and valuable Rings and favorite Artifacts with more freedom, reaping the tremendous power they impart - and use your power to wield the might of chaos in the endgame. Finding Secret passageways will unlock even more powerful equipment drops.

Last but perhaps most importantly: you will gain skill in the game! Avoiding the attacks of tricky monsters like spiders and nightmares will become second-nature: you will move laterally while attacking, use speed-boosting enchantments like battle march, know when to move backwards and dash to control the range, keep monsters on one side of you so you don’t get surrounded and use narrow hallways to block in monsters (think a Spartan 300), boss,mini-boss and Monster Champion weak points and strategies to fight them…when you start building a backup hero you will see how much better at the game you have become - combining all the little tricks has an enormous impact.

Now, enter in the dungeons, hero - there are monsters that need to be defeated!

~most of new player guide by @Barron, sb413197 and Landy

## Guide Part 1: Selecting your hero and skills, Bosses, and the Obsidian Tower

CLASSES

Ah yes…the age-old question: what is the best class? This might sound generic at first - but all of them are great, and there isn't a “best class”!  The primary differences between them are stylistic – it depends mainly upon what kind of game you enjoy.  Do you enjoy doing mass damage and not mind being a bit of a glass cannon – be a wizard!  Do you like a slower game and enjoy continuous healing – be a necromancer!  Enjoy tanking, and quickly killing bosses in the endgame…warrior! Try them all out and see how you like them but keep in mind that until you can hit the 450 armor cap and get some decent skills and stats in the hero, you might not get a good idea of what it’s like to play them - this is particularly true of the necromancer who does not come into his own until the middle game - which is generally reached for all heroes upon hitting the 450 armor cap (90 percent damage reduction), multiple crosses of life (to keep from losing equipment and allowing use of expensive equipment enchantments safely, and farming tactics for long term benefits); and a vampirism+searing weapon (vastly improving survivability and freeing the hero from most mana limits).

-WARRIOR

The Warrior is a classic tank class. Warrior specializes in ability to take hits with enormous HP and very rapid progression towards the 450 armor cap, due to his defense-boosting Second hand item (shield). He is very skilled in protecting teammates in multiplayer, as he forms an impenetrable wall of iron for them to hide behind and blast monsters from.

In early game single player, popular skills include: sacred blade due to increased damage against undead and demons (common boss classes and difficult monsters in the crypt); vow of holiness and reaper to heal the warrior, until he gets a vampirism weapon. The warrior is able to block long-range hits and close the distance easily due to his tankiness, making him a popular early game hero.

Middle game (450 armor cap, multiple crosses of life, vampirism/searing weapon) popular skills include include: sacred blade due to increased damage against undead and demons (common boss classes and difficult monsters in the crypt); steel fortress to block effectively; and throw shield to do ricochet damage against groups of monsters at range. The enormous HP of a warrior makes him excel in the middle game, as his health climbs towards 300 hp.

In the endgame, a maxed warrior using chaos rings and thousands of unused skill points may choose popular skills of: sacred blade due to increased damage against undead and demons (common boss classes and difficult monsters in the crypt); pain absorber to further boost damage (although blocking becomes less relevant); and RUMBLE OF BATTLE: the warrior can inflict unrivaled damage to bosses due to his “rumble of battle” skill, which does PERCENTAGE OF MAXIMUM HP BASED DAMAGE.  This can result in astonishing damage against high level bosses – potentially hitting for millions of damage in a single hit. Some find in the endgame that the warriors high HP to be less helpful than earlier in the game, because of the huge attack of some monsters. In the endgame the warrior may be unable to block more than 1 hit, however this is usually only an issue hundreds of floors deep - and there are ways around it, as the best defense is typically a good offense in the endgame…note however that the late game warrior may have to use ranged skills like his hand crossbow and shield throw (or even equip a wand/staff!) to deal with the incredible damage of the monsters when hundreds of floors deep - the “tanky melee” style of play will likely become a thing of the past and the warriors may become more attack focused. That being said, having 200+ hit points is never a bad thing, even in the extreme endgame - and as the only hero with a %max HP of monster based attack, the warrior may be the only hero who may be daring enough to face down a high level warlock….

-ARCHER

Long-range, high damage, and fast, an Archer excels at high single target, ranged damage. The archer has the ability to use a “stealth build” and become invisible to enemies with his shadow ability. In multiplayer, archer excels when teamed up with a warrior, allowing the class to safely deal huge amounts of damage at long range.

In the early game, popular skills include quick shot due to its good damage and low mana requirement; Leap to give the archer distance until he unlocks dash; and powerful shot to deal heavy damage to single enemies.

The middle game archer skills upon hitting the 450 armor cap with multiple crosses of life and a vampirism/searing bow, often include elven shot which becomes a mighty 7-hit shotgun blast that can break doors and chests in a single shot, as well as deal more damage as enemies close; shadow to let the archer hide from enemies; and sniper shot to pair with shadow for massive single target damage while hidden. The archer is not ideal against large groups of monsters however, and can run into trouble when he gets cornered by large hordes – he is best when fighting monsters from a single direction and controlling distance. The archer can farm the grim paladin very quickly at close range with his elven shot, circling around the paladin at point-blank range and blasting him until he dies (very quickly - even a paladin 30 won’t last long)

In the endgame for a maxed archer with chaos rings and thousand of unused skill points, the archer’s elven shot may do multi target 1-shot damage to spread enemy groups. Instant shot (as of February 2023) caps out at in attack speed at level 22 and slows down beyond that - it is a machine gun in endgame, and paired with searing on a weapon can do extreme damage over the whole floor. The through-shot lets him hit lines of enemies in crowded hallways, his smoke bomb lets him perma-stun high level merchants that become angry when you break their blue chests; and invisibility let’s him enter dangerous situations knowing that he shall be the first to attack.

-WIZARD

The Wizard specializes in multi-target AOE destruction, and guarantees an action-packed, offense-based gaming experience - which is important because he doesn’t have much in the way of hit points! For multiplayer, the wizard excels when teamed up with a tanking melee class.

In the early game, a wizard will typically enjoy using light beam to rapidly attack at long range; heal to recover HP during boss battles and after difficult monster fights; and control to take over monsters and make them fight on his side - an effective “first attack” against monster groups that disrupts their ability to swarm the wizard and gives him a tank to safely let him attack at range.

The wizard will switch his attack to lightning in the middle game (450 armor cap/multiple crosses of life/vampirism+searing weapon) to take advantage of the 10-target ricochet and ability to freeze groups of monsters in place. The wizard is very hard to corner even by large crypt groups. The middle game wizard likely finds that heal remains his best skill - although some like to use flame breath if they have a vampirism weapon - however at level 25 lightning is found by many to be the equal of flame breath. Control becomes an increasingly useful skills as it approaches level 25, while the monster levels are low enough to make it workable. Two challenges to overcome: the wizard is squishy with comparably low HP, and the wizard can struggle against bosses due to relatively low single target DPS…although his ability to heal instantly with a skill can be a BIG plus that may make up for that slow battle a bit!

In the endgame with chaos rings and thousands of unused skill points, the wizard is a joy in the dungeons: listening to the explosions as your lightning ricochets and fries huge groups of monsters is great fun, and your magic shield skill will stack with the steel ring to make two separate shields each capable of absorbing any attack - preventing massive damage insta-kills from high level monsters. Control becomes viable again, as a magic shield alternative, once in the endgame with thousands of unused skill points: unused skill points count towards hero level calculations - so a level 273 (maxed) hero with 500 unused skill points will count as a level 773 hero for calculations. With the mind control skill of the wizard, this makes 100% control rate of even very high level (common) monsters in the endgame to be workable - this will not work against empowered (green) and elite (gold) monsters however - and extreme high level monsters may be able to kill a hero with a single hit - making magic shield also popular. The wizard heal skill becomes valuable in prolonged boss battles against level 1000 plus bosses, where he can heal if he manages to survive a hit with both shields down - the heal is also useful when taking a heavy attack that is survived when vampirism did not trigger (for example, killing a high level monster horde that manages to get a shot off that lands after death). Lightning's great power generally makes the flame breath skill a bit superfluous - although it is so fun to use that some wizards choose to keep it in the late game - however from a pure functional perspective the heal skill likely is more usable.

-HUNTER

Prioritizing single-target damage, Hunter is great at picking off single powerful enemies; and is one of the best classes to deal with bosses in singleplayer. He performs extremely well being a hybrid between a warrior and archer, and can fight close or at range, but may struggle against swarms of enemies. In multiplayer, he has more hp than most long/medium-range classes.

In the early game, the hunter will use the skills bloodsucker to keep health up; crossbow shot; and killer step to close the distance. The middle game with the 450 armor cap, multiple crosses of life and vampirism+searing weapon will see the hunter using the multi-target hitting execution; spider bolt; and fan of knives. Popular late game skills include lunge for its great speed and ability to keep attacking and moving simultaneously; crossbow volley; and sign of sacrifice to rip down the armor of high level monsters and stop their regeneration.

-BERSERKER

The ultimate in melee damage inflicting, the Berserker can buff himself and his allies and debuff the enemy, including slower movement speed and lowering enemy defense. The zerk focuses mainly on tremendous melee damage - the only weakness he has is a lack of long range attack, or special skill forcing to close the distance between himself and the enemy. In multiplayer, berserker is extremely good being able to buff his entire team, causing then to deal more damage.

The early game typically sees the berserker using the skills talon of pain (to keep mana up), scarlet reaping (to more safely hit at range/AOE), and rapture of battle to keep health up. The middle game (generally, in all heroes including the Zerk, reached upon hitting the 450 armor cap and carrying multiple crosses of life and a searing/vampirism weapon), sees the Zerk switching to bonecrusher to cut through the armor of increasingly strong enemies; Rage to turn the enemies' attacks against them and pump up the Zerk's damage; and Scarlet Reaping to keep up longer range damage.

In the endgame, the berserker is great fun due to his incredible speed and attack power. His dual weapons mean dual enchantments, and with critical skills like vampirism or searing taken care of by weapon #1, weapon#2 can be freed for other enchants, like battering ram or pogrom…range is another option and can turn him into essentially a long range attacker with scarlet reaping. Mincer becomes a good skill to maximize DPS and slow enemies (armor growing too high to meaningfully impact with bone crusher), and battle madness allows the fast-moving maxed Zerk to rip through floors with great speed and lethality.

-NECROMANCER

The sorcerer of the dark arts. The Necromancer has the ability to summon undead minions to his command - particularly useful in the early game to distract enemies while he safely hangs back. It is good he can do this, because the necromancer is notoriously hard to use in the early game, and frequently runs into magic point shortages - he may have to play slowly and retreat to let his mana recover. Scarlet seal (to let the baby necromancer heal), sphere of darkness (fast projectile speed), and summon skeleton (protects the necro from melee), are popular early game skills.

In the middle game upon reaching the 450 armor cap and multiple crosses of life with a vampirism/searing weapon, the necromancer gameplay changes radically. Gone are the days when he retreats: he stands his ground and laughs at the monsters as their attacks barely scratch him, instantly healing from breath of death. He uses skeleton archers, and seal of death raises his slain foes to fight for him as shadows. He becomes a very safe hero, and the gameplay can be a bit slow for some, as although there is often little risk, his ability to kill monsters can be on the slow side for some players. However the mana problems become a distant memory, particularly with a piece of ascetism equipment and searing weapon.

Summons become relatively useless in the endgame, as they scale poorly with high level monsters - a level 25 summon will not hold up well against a level 2500 monster, so they are very rarely used. However, the shadows function quite similar to summons so you will still get that “necromancer experience” of undead hordes - not to worry - in fact they will get pretty massive and lethal! Breath of death will be traded in for cursed soul once again, as cursed soul gains huge AOE DPS at max level; skeleton archers are typically selected although summons are rarely used; and either seal of death or seal of the damned are viable choices for fighting large hordes - with seal of death possibly being most useful in most situations. The late-game necromancer with maxed armor and defense enchants can farm the grim paladin with very little effort, particularly with ascetism on one piece of gear - hold down breath of death, watch the damage increase, because the longer it is active the more damage it does (or DONT watch - you don’t really even have to watch the screen), and wait until the paladin dies….! Decent HP are needed to survive however - a dead necromancer can’t heal…

BOSSES

One of the most common questions is how do I defeat a certain Boss, such as forgotten keeper… it's usually a mix of starting at catacombs, killing everything, make your way to the boss with the potions, weapons and good armor you have collected on the way. The skill “dash”, unlocked at the fortress, is a must have - because it allows you to dodge boss attacks because it has I-frames (basically during the dash you can't take damage). Sometimes, you just have to level up your character/class and remember to count how many times you can attack before needing to doge/use dash usually being around 1-2 depending on your agility stats.

If you are stuck on a level-1 boss, you probably need to just get stronger and keep leveling up.  Experiment with using the environment to your advantage – you may be able to make a boss get hit by extending spikes.  This is particularly true with the forgotten keeper. Watch out for the spikes when fighting the king of bones!

The grim paladin is best fought at range. Try to circle around him and dash when he attacks.

The weaver boss is incredibly powerful head-to-head, but is weak to the side – unless he starts flailing around – then you had better dash!  Staying close is key, even with ranged heroes.

Jack the hunter is similar – stay close and dash when he attacks, because his fireball and arrow are LETHAL.

Warlock…you may think he is weak.  He is not…BEWARE OF HIM AT VERY HIGH LEVEL.  Even an endgame player wielding high chaos rings will struggle against a high level warlock.  Much the reverse of jack the hunter and royal executioner who get very weak in the endgame, a high level warlock (600+) becomes truly lethal, and can multi-instakill the strongest of heroes. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

"WHY DOES THE FORGOTTEN KEEPER, GRIM PALADIN, AND FEL SOURCE KEEP HEALING? I CANT KILL THEM…HELP!" You probably have poison on your weapon - they heal from poison. Switch to a weapon without the poison effect. The fel source may not be killable in the very early game, as it will poison itself and start healing - you may need to just ignore it entirely until your damage rises.

Obsidian tower

The Obsidian Tower is unlocked after beating floor 5 borderlands, finishing the “normal mode”of the game - which you might think of as an extended tutorial. No hero - that is not “beating the game” - sorry…!

The tower makes a fine training ground to grow your hero from the early game, into mid and late game. It is an infinite dungeon, with modifiers such as anti-hero traps that deal a lot more damage but you get 20% more experience - all the modifiers will have this effect in the tower.

-how do I unlock modifiers modifiers are dropped by bosses, gate bosses (such as pumpkin head or warlock), and monster champions (giant enemies with purple names they aren't that hard to spot and spawn rarely in the dungeon) after you defeat such an enemy they have a chance of dropping a modifier after collecting the modifier you can buy it with gems inside of obsidian tower menu in the modifiers section Obsidian tower menu Not much to explain here you can set your modifier, at what area you spawn in, do you have a boss between floors and if you want to remove locations you don't want to go in

Certain modifiers can be used to your advantage to boost experience with little danger.  The “we are surrounded!” modifier, for example, can be used with a single floor area size and boss between each floor, to give free experience and no added danger, since the every-floor-boss will prevent an ambush spawn.  The “while you were sleeping, the enemy is training” modifier is a good way to earn extra crystals.  “Diplomatic visit” gives extra variety with more types of monsters but otherwise is not particularly deadly.

Eventually you will unlock all the modifiers and find the ones you enjoy.  Play around with them and see what you like.  “Underground protein (increasing monster level)”, modifiers that randomize your skills, make the floor dark, create shadows out of killed monsters etc can be quite challenging to use and may not give rewards reflective of their difficulty.

Note that unlike the other endless dungeons, the tower will reset to the start point you select each time, and the bosses reset back to level 1 each time. Monster champions continue to rise in level until you die, however. You can change the tower settings each time you re-enter the tower from the fortress, and unlike the other endless dungeons, you may start on level 1 if you wish.

## Guide Part 2: Gold and Crystals, Getting "Unstuck", Pets, and Getting Good Stuff

“HOW DO I EARN GOLD AND CRYSTALS?”

There isn’t some super fast “secret” to this. The obsidian tower is a popular place to farm them . They are earned from playing the game, and the further you get, the faster they will come. In general, the Crypt of Emptiness will be your quickest gold and crystal earner, due to the simplicity of the floor and the large number of monsters. Play with the “while you sleep the enemy is training” modifier in the obsidian tower to increase the number of crystals dropped. You can combine this with the “diplomatic visit”, “we are surrounded” and boss each floor, to combine gold/crystal farming with some exp/level grinding and boss equipment farming. If you struggle with the crypt (it is typically viewed as among the most dangerous dungeon, particularly when you first enter a new floor), Catacombs will generally be the easiest dungeon to play in. The crypts and catacombs have the “tomb gates” spawn sometimes too, which is a tremendous source of gear and rings - the bone knights have great drops and you may switch gear to rabbits feet and shining rings to kill them.

Other early game strategies may involve farming cauldrons for witches that spawn every few seconds; and doing the daily quest whenever feasible.  Note that you only have to complete TWO quests to reach the next day’s quest upgrade.  It maxes out in rewards after a little while – don’t get overly stressed out about it though, if you find you are spending most of your time on the quest you might want to deliberately miss the quest for a day and reset it, so that it is easier again.

“I’M STUCK AND NOT MAKING ANY REAL PROGRESS” This is usually caused by not investing your resources properly. GOLD/CRYSTALS: These are really the same resource since you can interchange them at the fortress, in the “Ultimate” version of the game. You should be upgrading your fortress; and when everything is at least unlocked, investing in the rest of your base - I found clinic (boosting HP) and training hall (boosting damage) to be the most crucial. Eventually you will max everything, so unless you hoard your gold/crystals and don’t spend, you really can do no wrong.

SKILL POINTS: Spend these as you get them. Don’t worry about investing “wrong” - you will max all your stats and skills eventually anyway. Don’t focus excessively on one stat or skill - they will progress faster if you spread them out - but you may want to keep the secondary skills (not main attack skill) low, to keep monster and bows levels from rising with you too much, in the early game. You can switch to unleveled secondary skills if needed, to lower monster levels. You will eventually raise ALL 9 skills all the way to 25, and your characteristics to level 33 (see the “endgame oblivion strategies” thread for more on this)

Keep one backup set of equipment (second best gear) in your chest, so if/when you die, you can start off with a decent gear set. The most important thing is to get your armor to 450, for the 90 percent damage absorption cap. Use the heaviest armor and helm you find, and petrified carapace artifacts, to achieve that. As you get stronger, your fortress levels etc you will have more flexibility on what gear to use – tou may prefer using two red tails and a telescope, with a skull helm and the lightest armor that lets you hit the cap (typically orc chainmail for berserker/archer, probably hunter too), quilted vest for wizard/necromancer/warrior ONCE YOU CAN HIT THE 450 CAP with this. Save enchanting gear for middle game. You will buy crosses of life and store them in your chests, generally carrying several of them, to protect your expensive high end gear once you start enchanting and upgrading custom gear. (edited)

PETS

You should buy a dog in the very early game. Even a level 1 dog is extremely helpful. Pets are unique to each hero, but permanent - you don’t have to buy them each run. The golem and lynx respawn (if dead) when you reach the camp or fortress, while the dog only gets stunned and is immortal. Buy a dog as early in the game as you possibly can; and then ignore it until the endgame! If you absolutely can’t stop yourself from investing skill points in your pet though, put them ALL into damage and nothing else. See endgame section if curious why all in one one stat - but damage is best because HP will increase the time your dog stays stunned, while armor isn’t useful without HP.

You will usually use dog in the middle/endgame because pets don’t scale well in the deeper dungeons, so the immortality of the dog is important. Even when stunned, your dog can be an effective meat shield for clogging hallways, and fighting high level merchants.

LOW LEVEL BOSS FARMING: TECHNIQUE TO GET HIGH LEVEL RINGS AND POWERFUL LEVEL EQUIPMENT, GEMS, INGOTS

This is a obsidian and tower boss farming strategy for rings primarily, as well as other high-level gear since even level 1 bosses drop legendary rings, that you should be able to apply somewhat early in the game. You may not be able to use it in the first few days – but as your hero starts to get a bit stronger, you should find it very fast and easy to kill level-1 bosses – when you reach that point, hold on, because your progress is about to SKYROCKET.

Consider just using “diplomatic visit” and “we are surrounded” (which gives experience but doesn’t increase difficulty because you won’t get ambushed if there is a boss on each floor!), start on level 1 of tower catacombs, area size 1 floor, and boss between floor, then sprint for the exit ignoring everything. Use 3 rabbit's feet, and your two strongest shining rings. Kill the boss, sprint out (ignoring even the chest typically), repeat again and again until you bump into a camp; exit to the fortress. The bosses reset back to level 1; repeat at your leisure!

Should you find chaos-2 or chaos-3 rings, SAVE YOUR 2-4 STRONGEST ONES – they are among the rarest and most powerful items in the endgame.

Other strategies for getting good equipment involve farming the grim paladin, killing the monster champions (purple big monsters that appear on-floor in the dungeons), and killing the bone knights in the tomb gates that spawn in Catacombs and Crypts. Use 3 rabbits feet, and 2 shining rings for this.

## Guide Part 3: Armor, Multiplayer, and Camps

IS 90 PERCENT ABSORPTION FROM 450 ARMOR POINTS THE MAX ARMOR, AND IS THERE A REASON TO GET MORE?

Yes, that is the maximum - and no you cannot go further than this, and there is no reason to go past 450 armor - providing 90 percent base damage reduction. You can, however, get even more protection with the “defense” equipment enchantment (not weapon - that just gives armor); and with the “20% vs X (demons, humanoids etc)” enchantments. Your goal should always be getting as close to the 450 armor cap as possible – you may need to use “petrified carapace” artifacts to boost it higher early in the game (craftable at the blacksmith with two armadillo shells)

HOW DO I PLAY MULTIPLAYER?

When you get far enough (first boss, the forgotten keeper), it will unlock the endless dungeons. On these dungeons, you will see the “group raid (beta)” option. It is region-locked and you can only play with people in your same region; however cross-play between different platforms and versions (free with ultimate, mobile with PC etc) work. It is notoriously buggy, so it is smart to turn OFF automatic cloudsave backup and do a manual cloudsave, so you can reload in case you lose all your gear from a game crash. Note that if you create a multiplayer room, your current floor in the dungeon will be reset…so if you are hundreds of floors deep you will NOT want to create a room unless you don’t mind starting back again…! (edited)

I CAN’T FIND A CAMP!

The camp appears randomly. Much less in the obsidian tower when doing a boss per floor (because you will never enter the camp). Make sure you explore the full level, because you might miss the camp otherwise! The camp contains important things: your storage chests, the blacksmith, the merchant and your mentor (to safely take you back to the fortress without losing your equipped items, and passive items. Everything else in your inventory needs to be stored in the chest, or it will be auto-sold.

“SHOULD I BE KILLING THE MERCHANT IN THE CAMP FOR HIS CHEST?” Yes! Once you are done with that floors merchant, you should definitely do it - particularly in later floors the merchant has a mighty BLUE CHEST with crazy drops. Make sure you sell your stuff first, including if you are planning to return to the fortress, because he won’t return until the next floor’s camp. If you kill him and then sell your loot by returning to the fortress via the mentor, that sold loot won’t get all the sale buffs if there is no merchant, so sell it before you nab his chest. You don’t have to actually kill the merchant - you can run to the stairs, talk to the mentor or just click “finish” on the menu (because you’re in camp, you will go back to the fortress) - but he often has crystals. The merchant becomes one of the most dangerous “bosses” at higher levels, a level 2000 merchant has 1-shot level attack with an incredible attack rate and unpredictable direction of attack. Hide behind your stunned dog for protection, and dash to the back of the camp as needed. He is vulnerable to permastun and stacking frost though - once stunned he STAYS stunned. Don’t feel guilty if you’re role playing a good guy, I think the merchant is actually a monster…! He levels up as you go deeper in the dungeons and doesn’t even flag as “humanoid” apparently (my son told me that - apparently flame of fel doesn’t trigger or something). I think he is a “merchant of blood” monster, who turns around and sells your gear back to the monsters, turning a sweet profit…

## Guide Part 4: Hero Builds: Skills and Stats

“WHAT IS THE BEST SKILL AND STAT BUILD FOR ARCHER/WIZARD/BERSERKER/HUNTER/NECRO/WARRIOR?” You’re not going to like the answer to this one. The early part of this guide has popular skills at various game stages, but there is actually no right answer, and in fact there is no WRONG answer either, because on your quest to become a mighty hero, you will eventually max out ALL AVAILABLE SKILLS, and will do so MULTIPLE TIMES - read the endgame of this guide for the whys of this if you are curious - but just know that you will end up leveling all available skills all the way to the max of 25! Yes, even the “bugged” ones like the poison spell of the wizard - you will level them all and have more than ample opportunity to play around with all of them. You can and should therefore try out all the skills and level them all up; and all stats to 34, at which point you will transition to the endgame. In general you will progress fastest if you level up the stats roughly evenly along with your skills (perhaps stats a bit further along than skills), using skill points as you earn them, instead of hoarding them - a common error is to focus on one skill or stat while leaving the others to languish - try to stay balanced if you can. You will discover which skills you like best and it may change with time as you improve in the game and go onwards - for example in the very early game as archer I had a preference for the quick shot, then elven shot in middle game, and finally instant shot as my archer is approaching his evolution to endgame. For wizard I liked fireball and flame breath and control early game, light beam heal and control middle game, and lightning heal and shield end game. That’s just me…. certain skills may be best for specific purposes (boss’s farming vs going deeper in dungeons vs power leveling in the obsidian tower with modifiers), and in certain dungeons, and most critically for YOUR INDIVIDUAL PLAY STYLE - you should try them all out and come to your own conclusions, particularly when maxed. But again, you will max them ALL eventually…so, try them all out and see what you find most fun and effective for your individual play style!! And don’t worry about it - you can do no wrong unless you hoard skill points and don’t use them - so play around and have fun!

## Guide Part 5: The Store

"HOW DOES THE STORE WORK? WHEN I BUY SOMETHING, DO I ALWAYS HAVE IT? WHAT DOES THE “14/14” MEAN?"

When you upgrade your fortress and have discovered the blueprints for the fortress to be able to sell you stuff, you can buy them by clicking a vacant slot in your hero’s inventory at the fortress.

Passive items that are bought (or found) remain in the inventory permanently, until you die or put them in the chest. These are NOT sold automatically when you return to the fortress, unlike all other stuff in your inventory. Passives with the same effect do NOT stack with each other - having two soul eaters is no better than one - and the soul eater and soul mirror do not stack with each other, so if you have both, use the more powerful soul eater!

You have to enter the fortress with no other passive items in your inventory to buy more crosses of life. You will generally store them in the chest, and kill the king of bones or grim paladin directly and repeatedly, buying a cross of life each time you return to the fortress. You can use backup heroes as extra “passive item storage”, if you want, but it’s not necessary.

You may buy weapons and armor as well; and you are actually buying multiple copies of the gear. The number of copies you have remaining is the first number (for example , it says 12/19: this mean the fortress will make 12 more for you). When you enter the fortress without a weapon of piece of armor in that slot (for example after death), it will automatically make you another, and the number left will tick down by one. Note that this equipment cannot be USED to improve other equipment, but you can use non-fortress gear and ingots to improve your fortress purchased gear.

Beware of buying potions and serums of oblivion, these are an endgame-only tool and get more expensive each time you buy them. Read the endgame thread for more, and don’t worry about it until your hero is already starting to get powerful (will be around level 210 or so, with all 9 skills maxed).

Potions of experience are even more endgame, these only make sense when you are already DONE with the oblivion strategy - or choose to purchase crystals with real money to hypercharge your progress and have already maxed your fortress (not at all necessary - you can definitely earn them at a reasonable rate by playing!) Experience potions do not increase in cost.

The chests are only available through the camp. The quickest way to access it, when you’re strong enough, is to enter the obsidian tower, level 1 crypt of emptiness, with no boss between floors and no modifiers - this maximizes the chance of rapidly finding a camp either on-floor or between floors, with minimal risk - ideally using an old map artifact, so you can just run to the stairs directly if there is no camp on-floor, without needing to explore for it. Fighting the bosses directly do not take the hero to the camp directly any longer, and is still the case as of October 2023.

## Guide Part 6: Secret Passageways, and Inventory Management

“HOW DO I FIND THE SECRET PASSAGEWAYS IN THE CATACOMBS AND ABANDONED PRISON?” The secret passageways contain the rare “plague spawn” monster, pits where you can temporarily get rare summoned monster allies, and chests with powerful drops; but can be tricky to spot. You need to find cracks in the wall that extend DEEP INTO THE WALL. I find them easiest to find when I look slightly behind the wall instead of at the surface. They are easier to spot with a compass, crafted by combining an old map with a silver ingot at the blacksmith (and no, they don’t stack - 1 is enough) but once you’re used to finding them you may not need one. When you hit a secret wall a few times it will get this same appearance.

“MY INVENTORY KEEPS GETTING CLOGGED WITH JUNK AND IT TAKES FOREVER TO DESTROY STUFF!” This is what the “filter” option is for. It’s an auto-destroy function. Make sure you have the correct buttons selected - “destroy artifacts”, “destroy ingots” etc (not usually rings unless you are endgame…you would probably hate to destroy a hollow chaos-2 ring only worth 156 gold…) It should work, although for some reason the game often thinks thinks the artifacts/ingots/stones are worth more than they are, so you might have to set the slider kinda high. Around 200 is typically a good spot to have it if you’re tower boss farming, so you don’t have to destroy stuff, but play around with it. Another strategy is to turn the filter off until your inventory is almost full, then manually destroy stuff with the filter on so you replace junk with..um..more valuable junk to sell to the merchant. I usually do this in the regular endless crypt, since I often find a camp before the end of the floor - and pop in once I’ve cleared the floor, before heading to the next floor. For consumables like potions/bones/fangs etc, upgrade the tailor at the fortress, and just use them whenever you get them by conveniently clicking on the tailor slots, so your inventory doesn’t fill up with them. They might even come in handy like that, so you don’t just hoard them. They usually aren’t worth very much anyway, unless you have a whole bunch. The fortress inventory upgrades and “bottomless bag” passive item dramatically increase storage - it becomes less annoying when those are maxed.

## Guide Part 7: Bug Workarounds, and Common Problems

“WHY DOES IT SAY *not available* NEXT TO SOME OF MY DUNGEONS?

You can only play “normal mode” or “endless dungeons” but not both at the same time. If in the story mode, when you reach floor 6 of borderlands you may switch over to the endless dungeons. If you have finished the normal mode already and re-entered it again, dying or finishing it again will let you return to the endless dungeons.

“I LOST ALL MY EQUIPMENT, AND MY DUNGEON FLOOR, EXCEPT I DIDN’T DIE! I JUST LOGGED IN AND ALL MY GEAR WAS GONE! HELP!“ There are a number of bugs that can do this. If you log out inside a boss battle, in tomb-gates, suffer a crash while in multiplayer. Sometimes it’s unavoidable - if you get resurrected by a cross of life sometimes you will be “frozen” and immobile until a boss or creature moves you… I recommend turning OFF automatic cloudsave, and manual cloud saving at least once per day, or whenever your hero is in the fortress. Make sure you have a pocket rogues account. You may have to reinstall the game to get your dungeon level back.

“I EXITED THE DUNGEON THROUGH THE MENTOR, BUT NOW CANT GET BACK TO THE MAP - IT JUST THROWS ME INTO THE DUNGEON!” This is a common bug that comes from fighting the forgotten keeper directly from the map. To break it, you can store your stuff in the chest and die; or you can fight all the way to borderlands 6 again, and then go back to the map and fight the grim paladin or king of bones directly. Don’t fight the forgotten keeper directly.

“I MADE IT TO FLOOR 30 OF A DUNGEON, BUT I CAN’T START ON EVEN FLOOR 25! WHAT GIVES?” To jump to a floor, you have to have CLEARED that many floors, killing all the normal monsters on the floor before you go to the next one. It is therefore not based on the deepest floor you have reached, but rather the number of floors you have cleared. (edited)

“CAN I TRANSFER MY POCKET ROGUES GAME BETWEEN DEVICES/VERSIONS/FORMATS?” Yes. Turn off automatic cloudsave on both devices (and leave it off…it is not helpful…), login/create pocket rogues account and login with both devices/formats/versions. Manual cloudsave on device 1, cloadload in device/version 2.

"SHOULD I BUY THE ULTIMATE VERSION" If you intend to play the game more than a few hours, most players likely find it quite worthwhile. you get -turns halls of battle (berserker building), necromancer, artifacts, and many other structures from costing gems into coins -autosaves when exiting a dungeon -you can start on floors that aren't 1 in endless dungeons (such as floors 25 and 50) -more common gem drop rate meaning you have to grind less (50% more gems how I remember higher reward gems from a mission by 50% as well ) - unlocks a new area sunken grotto (beat floor 5 borderlands to unlock it ) steam version is automatically ultimate

You can exchange gold and crystals back and forth at the fortress with the ultimate version – they become the same currency.

## Optimal Weapons for Each Class

In the early game, in general, the available weapon with the highest average damage should be used.

Below are the best primary weapons for each class AT THE VERY ENDGAME. This means that you have 1) at least one chaos ring equipped 2) at least 2,000 excess skill points 3) at least floor 50 (obsidian) or 100 (endless). At that point, +7 dmg from a "higher tier" weapon provides very small benefits compared to the 100-1000+ base dmg. This is why 1) higher atk speed to use more of your OP base attacks; 2) crit chance to double (\*225%) your OP base attacks and 3) innate enchantments to give you extra utility are much more important than meager raw damage. (edited)

The best weapons for each class would therefore be: - Hunter: Assassin's Dagger (15% crit, +30% spd) > Katar of Eater (15% crit, -20% spd) (Assassin's Dagger's +50% atk speed is always better than the raw dmg boost from Katar of Eater when maxed out. There is a strong argument for all melee classes using the assassins dagger, due to its speed and crit rate.

New hunters may prefer Katar of Eater) - Archer: Emerald Bow (5% crit, +20% spd) = Wood Bow (6% crit, +30% spd) (Both items are good. Margins are very small between the two items. Wood Bow is not viable without chaos rings and a high dungeon floor, but is the strongest archer weapon in this endgame situation due to its high crit rate and fire rate.

Warrior: Murderer's Sword (5% crit, 0% spd, Murderer) > Knight's Sword (0% crit, -10% spd) (Murderer is always the better option if you can handle the murderer enchant. If you can't, go Knight's Sword always over execut) - Berserker: 1) Sword Build: Murderer's Sword (5% crit, 0% spd, Murderer) >= Knight's Sword (0% crit, -10% spd) 2) Axe Build: Rune Axe (0% crit, 10% speed, Battle Ram) (Same story with warrior for sword builds: go murderer's sword but if you can't handle it, go knight's sword. For axe builds, just go rune axe. The off-hand weapon's damage is averaged then divided by two. Murderer's sword is therefore the best off-hand weapon that provides the highest dmg boost)

Wizard: Cleric's Stick (+2% crit, +40% spd) = Candy Cane (4% crit, +30% spd, Frost) = Cursed Branch (0% crit, +30% spd, vampirism) (All 3 weapons are very good; decide for yourself if you want atk spd/frost+crit/innate vampirism) - Necromancer: Cursed Branch (0% crit, +30% spd, vampirism) = Cleric's Stick (+2% crit, +40% spd) = Candy Cane (4% crit, +30% spd, Frost) (Necromancer's breath skill can be effective with murderer so an extra slot from cursed branch is very worth it - however pogrom may be easier to use for some. You can choose cleric's stick or candy cane as well)

This is why going a dagger build for all melee classes may be worth it bc the 15% crit and 30% atk speed of Assassin's Dagger which is fairly OP. If you can handle murderer, go murderer's sword for ber/warrior. However, consider Assassin's Dagger over Knight's Sword/Execut's Sword

credit to @Himynameissomeone for many of these recommendations. ~sb413197

## Optimal Equipment for Each Class

In general, the primary goal should be to hit the 450 point armor cap - creating 90 percent damage reduction. There is no advantage to going beyond 450 armor.

In the early game, this will entail using the heaviest armor and helm available, to get as close to 450 as possible - and then using armor boosting artifacts like multiple petrified carapaces to make up the rest. The “heavy armor” and “topF helm” have the highest base stats of the body and head armor.

In the endgame with a maxed fortress and stats, there is much more flexibility. The skull helm is a strong choice, with its long vision and relatively high armor, as well as its “terror” bonus effect that can reduces monster armor. Combined with the skull helm, the fetid breastplate will hit the cap for any maxed hero and give another enemy armor reduction inherent effect - however it has a high movement speed penalty.

For a maxed wizard or necromancer, when using a skull helm, the quilted vest will hit the 450 armor cap and minimize movement penalty. The archer, hunter and berserker will hit the cap with orc chainmail. The warrior can hit the cap very easily when using a steel shield or tower shield, allowing substantial flexibility in equipment selection, making it a popular early game choice.

If using a “spiritual strength” ring (of unity) in the endgame with unused skill points, the 450 armor cap may be reached without ANY equipment - permitting use of the loincloth with its movement speed BOOST. However, most players will prefer use of two chaos rings in the endgame.

The highest quality off-hand item should be used, unless you are going for a unique drop-only enchantment (for example, if you are a wizard, you may have trouble finding a forgotten tome that also has BATTLE MARCH - so you may use a lesser book until you can find a time of battle march)

Good luck hero, and may no arrow pierce your defenses!! ~sb413197

## Middle Game: Enchantments

There are a variety of effective strategies to follow in enchanting your gear. This is more of a mid-game tool - generally focusing upon your fortress will be a much higher priority. Some enchantments are drop-only and cannot be created.

In the early game, direct boosting effects like +10hp, +3 damage (wrath) are valuable; in the late game however the % based damage boosts tend to be very useful, to stack with the effect of very high damage weapons and in particular chaos rings.

Equipment: Wrath is valuable early game. Heroes that need mobility (archer and wizard particularly) benefit from the drop-only enchantment BATTLE MARCH. Defense on each piece of equipment with have a noticeable enhancement on survivability. Thirst for blood and martial art are both % damage boosting, and very valuable for the endgame.

Weapons: Wrath is valuable early game, as is defense (for its flat armor increase effect). Bounty Hunter and Giant Slayer do increased damage against dangerous late game monsters, and are important for the endgame player. Vampirism and searing restore health and mana upon monster killing, and more powerful monsters restore more - in the late game every single monster will fully restore health and mana, so these enchantments become very valuable. The drop-only enchantment Pogrom does a flat 15% damage boost without the self-damaging effect of murderer (which does 20% damage) and is popular; as is the "reaping" drop-only enchantment in melee weapons. Battering ram can crash through the blocks of enemy melee - a helpful second-weapon enchantment for a berserker.

~sb413197

## ENDGAME: Potions of Oblivion, Chaos Rings and Unused Skill Points

So, champion, you have reached the endgame. Thousands of monsters have fallen to your might, songs are sung of your exploits. Your 4 stats are all over 30, your skills are all completely maxed, your fortress is completely maxed. Your 3 pieces of equipment are the strongest possible to obtain, is optimally enchanted with defense, thirst for blood and martial art; and hits the 450 armor cap without use of Artifacts - freeing you to use 3 werewolf fur if HP is your goal, 3 rabbits feet when farming, or 3 red tails for speed (sometimes with a telescope or old map, depending on the situation). Your legendary, top-of-the-line Weapon is similarly monstrous and likely has searing, vampirism, and bounty hunter custom-enchanted. You carry multiple crosses of life to protect all that expensive gear. Your hero has incredible power, but you want more….so very much more…you want to go hundreds or even thousands of floors deep, and slay armies of monsters with your terrible might…!!! (And, first of all: if this IS NOT you and you aren’t actually at the endgame, FINISH BUILDING YOUR HERO AND GEAR, AND COME BACK HERE LATER - this is an endgame-only tool and will not work properly otherwise…)

Rings of chaos can boost your attack damage into the TENS of THOUSANDS with enough unused skill points.  Unfortunately, every skill point costs more experience to accrue than the last. It is also getting hard to increase your stats beyond the low 30s, and pets are even tougher to progress. So…how to keep progressing?

The answer lies in a technique where you max everything possible, then use oblivion potions and serums to “harvest” skill points.  Essentially you are using your unused skills and pets as skill point storage banks. First, you need to max EVERYTHING out - all stats, all skills, all pets (each in only a single stat!!). To do that, you will first max out all 9 skills to 25 and drink a potion, moving those skill points over into your hero stats and pets. If your pets have skill points spread out, you will want to drink serums to reset their skill points, and invest ONLY in a single stat (typically damage) for each pet. Note that you have to drink a separate serum to reset each pet, whereas one potion resets all 9 skills.

Strategies:

Method a)

This first method involves purchasing 7 oblivion potions/serums, and is best used if you have invested very little to none in pets to this point.

First, gain experience and max all 9 skills to 25, and raise all 4 stats to 34 if you aren’t there already (you probably are, though). You will typically do this by fighting in the obsidian tower with several modifiers, on as high a floor level as you can safely handle - you will probably be fine with starting at level 50, with 80% experience buff from modifiers, fighting a boss each floor… since you have maxed equipment and a maxed fortress, this should be easy-breezy for you. You will probably level your skills fastest by racing through the tower levels with an old map until you find one with a camp - then bounce back and forth in level, gaining experience and going into the camp to level your skill (MUCH cheaper that way, once a skill gets around level 15 or thereabouts, with a maxed fortress).

Now, you are about to be transferring the points currently in your maxed skills, over into pets and stats to max THEM too, and max everything in preparation for your “oblivion harvest”….

--> drink your first oblivion skill potion, which will reset all 9 skills (currently maxed at 25) back to 1, and give you 3000+ unused skill points. Immediately use those 3000+ unused skill points to max out all 4 hero stats to 50 - intelligence, endurance, strength and agility will all be maxed at 50 from your first potion and skill reset.

—-> gain experience and max all 9 skills to 25 again. It will be much easier than the first time you did it, you are a fully maxed hero now, and will wreck everything less than 100 levels deep in the tower!

—> Now, make sure all pets are either level 1 with no skill point investments, OR have ALL THEIR SKILL POINTS IN A SINGLE STAT - usually damage although it doesn’t really matter. This is needed to maximize the size of your “storage bank” and get the maximum number of skill points back, at the conclusion of this process. If you have unfortunately spread your pet skill points out across the 3 stats, instead of investing all in one, you will need to drink a serum of oblivion for each pet to rectify this problem, and invest everything into a single stat. Now you see why this was recommended early in the new player guide - this could mean thousands of crystals!!!

--> drink another oblivion potion, lowering your skills to 1 again. This time, use those 3000 plus unused skill points on your pets, ALL IN A SINGLE STAT ONLY (probably damage). Pets are extremely slow to level because you have to do it in the fortress (see method C if you don’t mind a bit of pet leveling, to save a potion)

--> gain experience and max all 9 skills to 25 yet again. Drink yet another oblivion skill potion - you will now have enough to max all 3 pets to 50 IN A SINGLE STAT. All 4 stats should now be maxed at 50, and all 3 pets at 50 in a single stat.

--> gain experience and max all 9 skills to 25, one last time. Now everything is maxed!!! Feel free to delay the next and final step a bit and gain some unused skill points “naturally” and get used to using chaos ring - maybe 200-400. You don’t have to do this, but feel free if you like - this is the last time you will have all 9 skills maxed and level 50 pets, so you want to be sure about your final 3 skill selection, and that they are the ones you want to use with chaos….and make sure you have enough crystals for 4 more potions, accounting for the fact that they get 100 crystals more expensive each time…

--> Drink one final oblivion skill position, and one serum of oblivion for each of your 3 pets - totaling 4 more potions (and 7 in all - 10 if you had to reset each of your pets before doing this….). All skills have been returned to level 1.

—> use your unused skill points to re-level ONLY THE THREE SKILLS YOU WANT TO USE TO 25 - the other 6 skills will be kept only at level 1 (or 0, if they aren’t one of the starting skills you won’t even re-buy them), and leave ALL 3 PETS AT LEVEL 1 forevermore. Use your level 1 dog - you will find him extremely useful as a stunned meat shield, particularly when fighting level 1000+ merchants, and clogging hallways so you can attack from behind his stunned body - and he will un-stun very fast at level 1! You have ~6000 unused skill points, and are ready to destroy the world with your chaos rings.

Other possible methods:

b) 6 potion method: max all skills&stats --> oblivion skill pot spend on pets --> max skills --> oblivion skill pot max pets --> max skills --> 3 oblivion pet pot

c) 6 pots: max all skills + stats to 34  --> oblivion skill pot to max stats --> max skills --> get all pets to 24 --> oblivion skill pot to max pets --> max skills --> 3 oblivion pet pot

d) 5 pots: max all skills + stats --> get all pets to 24 --> oblivion skill pot to max pets --> max skills --> 3 oblivion pet pot

The oblivion price increase has a cap. The serum (pet reset) stops at 1750 and the skill reset potion at 1800.

Consider trying strategy A if you find leveling pets painful; and strategy C if you don’t mind grinding up your pets naturally to 24 in a single stat (perhaps by farming the grim paladin…) - again, all pets leveled in a single stat..

Why does it have to be all in a single pet stat, you ask….unfortunately you can only have a level 50 pet, no higher. That could be a pet with 17 levels put into health, 17 into attack, and 16 defense; or it could be a pet with all 50 put into one stat. Difference of ~1250 points you get back, vs only ~430 or so.

After the oblivion harvest, you will really only go much further by converting gold into crystals and then buying skill points, because it will take millions of experience to gain a single level - although the altars of experience (the ones to at look like books) scale with level so those will still advance you occasionally. It is PRICEY to buy skill points - it costs 80,000 crystals for every 1000 additional skill points…you may wish to delay using the oblivion potions and serums to earn a few hundred skill points “naturally” - this will also give you practice with chaos and testing your maxed skills, to see which 3 skills you want to use forevermore.  You may want to even play WITHOUT chaos for a few hundred floors to get the feel of battling high level monsters. You will not want to get to the point where you are dying - if that starts to happen, do the harvest, crosses of life are expensive - you will progress 10 times faster and rapidly accumulate gold/crystals/gear…

Credit to @Himynameissomeone for this innovative strategy. Good luck and see you on the crypt leaderboard! ~sb413197

## ENDGAME MECHANICS: Potions of Oblivion, Chaos Rings and Unused Skill Points

### 1. What are chaos rings and where can they be found

Chaos rings are rings with the item effect "Breath of Chaos," followed by its level, which ranges from I to V, although effects over chaos 2 are extraordinarily rare - chaos 5 has been found however.
The description is as follows for a chaos 2 ring, for example: "Damage dealt increased by 0.2 points for each unused skill point (but not more than [current floor \* 5] points)."

The item effect level of "Breath of Chaos" affects how much "Damage dealt (is) increased" by:

* I - Damage dealt increased by 0.1
* II - Damage dealt increased by 0.2

etc.

*Rings drop as loot from any enemies and chest, however for this to occur, the **Jewelry workshop** upgrade must be purchased in the fortress:*

### 2. The mechanics behind it

*"Damage dealt increased by 0.2 points for each unused skill point (but not more than [current floor \* 5] points)" -* **This is for Breath of Chaos II:** the value "0.2" will change depending on its level

To do additional damage with the chaos effect, the player is required to have **unused skill points**. The more unused skill points, the more damage is dealt by the character equipping the ring. As described in the description of the chaos item effect, this calculation is performed as follows: *0.2 x **unused skill points.***

For example, if you have 100 unused skill points, you would deal an additional 20 damage *(0.2 x 100)*. However, there is a restraint on this power which keeps you from dealing extreme damage at low floors.

**What does "not more than [current floor \* 5] points" mean?**

This power is limited by the floor which caps how much unused skill points are taken into effect, until floor depth rises great enough.

For example, say you're on floor 12: The **max damage** added by chaos is 60 - which is (*current floor = 12) x 5*

This means the maximum bonus damage from this effect will be 12 = 60. If using a single chaos-2 ring, you would need 300 unused skill points to max out that 60 extra chaos damage points, because 300 *(unused skill points) x 0.2 = 60 damage.*

3. Why is this an end-game strategy

From the calculations above, you'll notice 60 damage isn't that much, especially at the cost of 300 unused skill points, so where's all the power?

The issue here is the floor number. This number determines the maximum bonus damage the character receives, and so the lower the floor, the less bonus damage. The higher the floor, the larger the bonus damage.

However, as the damage cap increases for each floor you climb, so does the requirement of unused skill points. For example, to reach the maximum bonus damage of 2500 on floor 500 (floor times 5), you would need 12,500 unused skill points if using a single chaos-2 ring.

However, keep in mind the required XP to reach the next skill point increases exponentially, so how is this possible?

### 4. Oblivion Potions Strategies

This strategy is intended for attaining large amounts of skill points.

We want thousands of skill points, however as you gain some skill points the required XP for the next skill point increases exponentially.

*I'm not tryna get 1 million XP for one more skill point...*

To combat this we invest all our skill points into two things:

1. Character Abilities
2. Pets

**Why these two things?**

Because of the Serum of Oblivion and Potion of Oblivion. These two potions allow us to retrieve our stored skill points in pets and abilities.

**So why store them in pets and abilities in the first place if we're going to retrieve it?**

It's too combat the exponential XP requirements for skill points:

1. When levelling up our abilities, it comes at the cost of skill points
2. As a result, we have less skill points
3. Now that we have less skill points, the XP requirements has decreased due to the level of our skill points decreasing
	* For example, say it required 500 XP to reach 11 and 1000 XP to reach 13 skill points, but right now I have 12 skill points
	* After spending one skill point, I would be back to that 11 skill points
	* Now to return to 12 skill points (so gain 1 skill point) it would once again require the same 500 XP
	* This is better than reaching 13 skill points in total, as that would require 1000 XP as opposed to 500 XP
	* **Do you notice what we did here?** Instead of attaining one skill point for 1000 XP **we attained it for 500 XP**
4. This is why we invest our skill points into our abilities until it's **all maxed**
5. Once maxed, we use the **Potion of Oblivion** to get all our skill points back
	* This allows us to gain high amounts of skill points without having to worry about the exponentially increasing XP requirements

**Before oblivion potion:**

 Total Skill Points: 4199

 Total XP Required for Next Skill Point: 1049900

**After oblivion potion:**

 Total Skill Points: 7121

Notice how we got **2922 more** skill points instead of farming 1 million XP just for 1 skill point. This is how we bypass the exponential XP demand for skill points.

However, when investing skill points in pets, it's a bit different.

1. There are 4 available pets: Dog, Lynx, Golem and Battle Beetle
3. For each pet there are 3 possible selected upgrades, with each upgrade increasing exponentially, whilst increasing the pet level by one
4. The pet is maxed out on level 50, meaning you won't be able to upgrade all three stats to the max
5. Our goal is to maximise how much skill points we invest/store into these upgrades so that we can recall them later
	* After recalling all the skill points, it won't be practical to repeat this strategy as the XP requirements will be in the millions

1. Each upgrade will level the pet by one and require an exponential increase in skill points. 1 --> 2 --> 3 --> 4 --> 5 , etc., with the last upgrade requiring 49 skill points
2. As a result we focus on one upgrade (HP, Damage, Defence) to store as use up as much skill points as we can within the 50 level limit
	* If we upgraded other skills, it would decrease the total amount of skill points stored in the pet
	* For example, in the image above we notice a lvl 5 Dog with the following upgrades: HP - 5, Damage - 1, Defence - 1
	* If we were to upgrade damage for 1 skill point we would only store 1 skill point and level the Dog to lvl 6
	* If we then continue upgrading HP, our last upgrade would require us to use/store 48 skill points at Dog Level 49

If we hadn't spent that one upgrade on damage we would get the above as our last upgrade

Notice the difference? Instead of our last option allowing us to store 48, we're now able to store 48 (as the second last upgrade) **AND THEN** 49 skill points (as our final upgrade) since we didn't waste one upgrade on another stat.

Once we reach lvl 50, we do the same with the other 2 pets. After this we use the **Serum of Oblivion** on each pet, allowing us to recall all those skill points stored:

 *This is the result of maxing out one pet:* **+1225 skill points.** Multiply that by 4, for all your pets, and watch your damage grow.…

https://media.giphy.com/media/6jAqZVW3QshB0NeWgx/giphy.gif