Random Decaf Thoughts on The Palace of the Dead
Warning: Spoilers. I’m putting my thoughts under a read more in case some folks haven’t gotten to it yet.
So this place reminds me of Nyzul Isle of XI in that there are floors and certain debuffs and other random shit that could happen in there. Knowing this, we were excited to go in head first. We went in with another FC member as BRD (me) DRK (Iak) and SMN.
First and foremost, if you go in with randoms, it is literally random. We went 40 floors sans an actual healer. So be prepared to use up consumables as needed. You also get a phoenix down and the Cairn of Return helps in the event that things get really sticky (and sometimes they totally will).
So you go in, floor 1-5..ish, you’ll have really lively music, almost akin to being in a twisted carnival of sorts. You’re greeted with level 1 rats and shit. Oh yeah by the way, you start off at level 1, so the Heavy Shot spam was real. The deeper you go in, the creepier the music gets, and there’s also a few familiar tunes in between (I got so happy when Pharos Sirius’ theme came on as it’s one of my favorites). But anyways, you kill shit, you level up, you get chests that can give you Pom...thingies that either help you gain some treasure chests, turn mobs into chickens and frogs, or turn you into a HOLY FUCKING SHIT WTF OPNESS IS THIS (more on that later).
The main prize is an ilvl 235 weapon that you can get by leveling your armor and weapon inside to +30. As of today, I’m at +26 weapon and +22 armor. This was after completing floor 50 and resetting. Your weapon and armor are synced, by the way. It’s synced to about half your current dungeon level. So for me, in order to regain upgrades, I’d need to be level 56 for my weapon to unsync and 46 for my armor to unsync. Unfortunately, the only way to do that, I have to go through all the floors that don’t benefit me in any way.
That, my friends, is the sucky part. The grind. Is it as much of a grind as Anima? Probably not if you’re lucky. Even after unsyncing, we barely got the silver (upgrade) chests, and the ones that we did find either became mimics, blew up, or did nothing. So needless to say, it’s frustrating.
With that said, it’s definitely worth doing because not only do you get a nice weapon (and for me still using the 210 eso weapon, this would be a big boost!) but you can level lowbie jobs in here as well! After I get my bow from there, I plan on leveling one of my lowbie jobs in there, and my husband’s planning on leveling MCH.
A couple of things though...
Get rid of Pox as soon as you can (you need a Pom for this). That’s a 10 minute debuff that not only does a DOT, but stops HP regen, AND kills your dps.
When you get the Pom of Lust, save it for the boss. Vul stacks are real.
When you get the Pom of Rage, enjoy being a Manticore for a bit and instakill shit. HOWEVER, it’s useless in floors where you get the no-knockback rule and boss floors (Pom of Serenity is really nice for situations like this).
Speaking of Pom of Serenity, some of those debuffs are shitastic (gloom floor is one of em). Use it.
Oh and...exploding slimes that one-shot kill.
And enjoy the final boss fight. I love the “closure” to the Edda story. I put “closure” there because there is supposed to be another 50 floors, and I feel that it’s not quite over yet...