Am I ever late to the game!

Want a rogue-like dungeon crawler, that has increasing difficulty, some randomization, character growth, AND rewards for participation? Holy cow, coming here AFTER having experienced Torghast is an eye opener.

Palace of the Dead is 5 years old. That’s just before patch 7.1 in WoW-Legion. It’s a standalone dungeon crawler that exists outside of the rest of the game. Your level, gear, skills, consumables, and pretty much everything else doesn’t matter here. It’s 200 levels deep, with bosses and exits every 10 floors. You start floor 1 at level 1, and gain experience up to 60 (usually before floor 50). If you are level 13 outside the dungeon, you can still unlock level 60 skills inside the dungeon.

Why run it?

• You get experience, gil, and tomes from completing floors. It’s one of the most efficient leveling methods from 1-50.
• You can get cosmetic weapon skins
• There are random cosmetic drops within (accursed hoards)
• It’s a challenge!

What is it?

• 200 floors of death
• Around 10 enemy types per 10 floors
• One boss per 10 floors
• Ability to save progress every 10 floors
• Ability to have “permanent” damage/armor increases for future runs
• Support for solo, fixed or matchmade parties
• Can mostly do without a healer or a tank
• Hidden traps
• Chests with temporary or permanent buffs
• Mimics!
• Heaven on High is PotD part 2, relevant from 50-60.

Lessons Learned

• The permanent buffs (aetherpool gear) are the source of offense and defence power increments
• The permanent buffs have a cap per floor, so even if you had +50 if you restart at floor 1, the value is closer to +15
• All temporary items (pomanders) are removed after killing a boss. Use them.
• Once you complete level 50, you can restart at floor 50. This should be the first goal.
• Defence is more important than offence. Bosses in particular hit like trucks.
• There’s no durability or gil costs
• You cannot exceed floor 100 if you have even a single death
• Floors 100+ require a fixed party (or solo)
• Solo runs are quite hard, and very dependent on RNG. Red Mages have the best toolkits, followed by tanks.
• Mimics will end your run.
• Most group runs take 15 minutes to clear 10 floors.

Torghast Deltas

PotD is a mix of the rewards from Mage Tower and the structure of Torghast. When PotD was new, you could swap your progress for some decent gear increments – that’s not relevant today. The rest of the differences:

• You can save every 10 levels. You don’t spend an hour+ and lose all progress.
• All starting and progress is specific to PotD. Your ilvl before entering, or character level, have zero impact. You can’t brute force it.
• PotD is still relevant after 5 years. Torghast stopped being relevant a long time ago.
• The RNG for player power is capped at 30% offense, 40% defence. Torghast had simply broken RNG where you either turned into a walking god or reset a run.