Long time no write!
Over the last 3-4 weeks, for some reason I got interested in Deep dungeon so I decided to try and solo them all for the achievements and titles. I had very little experience on deep dungeons before, never really cared, so I did a good amount of research and checking videos to learn. Today I completed the last one so I wanted to share my thoughts on each!
Eureka Orthos: I started with the newest deep dungeon as MCH. In total it took me about ~12 attempts (including 2 defeats at the last boss). This is also partly due to learning deep dungeon mechanics in general, but this was IMO the most balanced of the deep dungeons and a lot of fun from floor 1 all the way to 100, but specially floors 80-100 were amazing looking and a good combination of dread and fun! Overall I'd say this is the easiest deep dungeon to solo as it is a bit less reliant on RNG and with the right know-how the clear rate is quite consistent, so I went on to clear it again solo and a couple more times in a group to get the tiger mount :)
Heaven on High: I then moved on to HoH and changed to WAR for this as I read the mobs hit really hard. After levelling my aetherpool, my first clear only took 2 serious attempts (+ a couple of silly deaths in middle floors) but weirdly this dungeon felt much harder than EO. I did not get an elder magicite in my clear run so had to learn the 90 boss and kill it normally. The last 20 floors felt incredibly agonizing due to the small rooms and tiny corridors, making avoiding patrols extremely risky, while trying to conserve as many poms as possible to wipe the later floors. Compared to EO, it didn't feel as good to clear as it doesn't have a boss at the end so basically the last 3 floors just get insta-deleted with petrification or magicite and you win, it wasn't as exciting as the EO 100 boss.
Palace of the Dead: Cleared as MCH. This took by far the longest in terms of time, mainly due to the fact it's 200 floors. So when dying on 180+ it can take 12-15 hours for another attempt.
On my first serious attempt, I reached floor 199 with what I felt was a winning set of items in my pouch: I had a strength, steel and rage ready to wipe the last floor. However I had 3 floors with no items in the last set so I had to serenity those. I figured there's no way they would give me 4x No items on the same set right? Then I entered the last floor and.... Gloom, Blind, No Items. It was GG :(
On the third attempt, I reached 199 again. This time I was very short on time but I had serenity for the last floor ready. But this time it gave me HP up and no debuffs so I didnt need it... I fought my way through and managed to open the exit of the last floor and all I had to do was sneak my way to the exit with 3 mins on the clock, and then I saw the exit.....it was a treasure room and I had no items or time to clear it. (pic attached)
Finally on the 4th attempt, with more experience in item management I managed to save good items to make the last few floors clearable and managed the clear!
I went ahead and cleared a 2nd time since I had another save at 191 :)
About PotD I will say that I really loved the floors 150+. I wish there was an option to only play these floors. The tile set looked great, and the floors were fun and challenging. The lower floors on the other hand, specially 1-50 were incredibly boring and I wish they didn't exist. 50-100 were Okay. And 101-140 were also very annoying and unfun. I think SE did a good job in the newer deep dungeons to make them have less floors so that all floors can be more interesting instead of having 100+ throw-away ones.
So overall I rate the deep dungeons like this:
In terms of overall fun: EO > PotD > HoH
In terms of overall difficulty: PotD > HoH > EO
So that's been my experience with deep dungeons and now I am looking forward to new ones in Dawntrail! :)
