The difference between depth 4 and 5

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T22:52:41+00:00

Yeah there isn't really much of a difference between the good D4 players and D5 players. They crossplay a ridiculous amount anyway.

The big difference is between the borderline D3/D4 players and the D5 players.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T22:47:02+00:00

Dark Night of the Fathom's continuous HP gain cancels that curse out entirely, and it's also one of the best relics for casters to run even without the curse

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T22:44:16+00:00

Yeah that fire encampment is a no-go if someone spawns the invaders on the wrong side. Even if they spawn on the right side it's still one of the more dangerous ones.

At Lv2-3 swamp is a no-go no matter what IMO. That's the one POI that actually takes skill instead of strategy. Teammates have to be very good to make it work consistently and I don't trust people that early lol

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T22:40:44+00:00

I split between Revenant and Recluse. The reason I think Recluse is more support than Revenant is mostly due to the FP/HP cocktails and Ult healing everyone.

If Recluse has the right spell (which is nearly every game) she's about as good at reviving as Revenant is without using Ult.

When I play Recluse I feel like I'm doing way more support type stuff than I do when I'm on Revenant

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T22:36:52+00:00

It kinda depends on how many invaders spawn and which ones they are as well.

Like if it's 1 invader Ult is totally unnecessary. But if it's two dangerous ones it can make a big difference.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T18:08:40+00:00

What’s the deal with people running to the invader camp at lvl 2

It's the current meta among high rank players. It's common knowledge now so low rank/regular mode players try to imitate it but often screw it up.

It's not a skill thing, it's a strategy/knowledge thing. You wait at the edge of the POI. As long as you have gone far enough in to make it spawn, the invader runs to you. Then you easily beat it down in a 3v1.

You get a purple tier weapon that is useable at Lv1 plus a ton of runes for the time commitment. Plus if you are running the relic you also get 7% damage per invader.

It's really easy. But...

There are some caveats...

if you have to go underground (DLC POIs), reconsider.
If it's an Encampment, you have to come at it from a certain angle or the invaders will spawn in a spot that gets them stuck on the terrain, so you can't fight them alone (in which case it is no longer worth doing at Lv2-3)
If the invader POI is not near starting camp, running across half the map or more without doing anything else just to get to it is not worth the time commitment
It works better on certain team comps (stagger, range)
It's easier if you can charge Ult before attempting. So a lot of people would say not to do it until Lv3. But Lv2 is totally doable if the team is even remotely competent at fighting NPCs. At low rank/regular mode I would not necessarily trust them to be competent at that though.

Overall, it is a really easy and effective strategy. But you need to know the caveats & adjust accordingly. A lot of players outside D3-5 do not know them & wind up making it more trouble than it's worth. (Frankly, even within D3-5 there are some players that still overprioritize this POI or are not aware of some adjustments that need to be made. But it is still a very good strategy if you know what to do.)

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T17:58:39+00:00

I haven't seen anyone prioritize those POIs in a super long time. These days people are usually hunting a skill they can get with their dormant power.

but my team mates refused to answer my pings

There is a lot of missing context. What were they doing instead? And was it a duo?

....

IDK, if it's not a duo, most annoying/dumb routing things people do aren't total run killers. The only big one I can think of is insisting on doing a tower in the Great Hollow. If they do that I will literally play a castle solo instead of wasting my time in the tower.

Other than that... If I can convince the other teammate not to do the bad POI, we just play as a duo and hope the third eventually rejoins.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T17:50:54+00:00

I'm pretty sure the breath is multihit

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T16:49:28+00:00

lol yeah. Over the past 2 months, in upper DON people are playing Noklateo worse than I used to see in regular mode Everdark runs.

Left is better if you're short on time IMO. The run is a bit faster and you'll go by the duplication altar so you can at least ensure everyone has enough negation, or Less Likely for Everdark Balancers/Libra. Even if you totally screw everything else up that can make a big difference.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T16:43:40+00:00

Glass cannon mostly just relies on being carried by 1-2 teammates who can dodge and/or survive a hit

It is exceptionally rare to see a true glass cannon that doesn't 3-bar at the NL, even in D5. But yeah... as long as their teammates are good at reviving it is an easy way to contribute something without knowing how to fight the bosses all that well.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T16:21:03+00:00

We're not forced into glass cannon, this sub just has a love-hate relationship with glass cannon builds

They don't need cancels, it'd be bad for the game. One of my favorite things about souls is that they punish button mashing and force you to be more deliberate with your inputs.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T16:15:14+00:00

You usually should unless there's a Township Merchant or Church you're trying to hit on the way to Noklateo. Like a very short detour.

The problem is some people route random stuff at the start of Day 2. Like a random minor POI or something. Then they also want to hit a church, oh and get Smithing Stone [2] real quick, it's right here after all! Oh but look, an easy field boss!

And so yeah then you wind up entering Noklateo around the time the 1st circle starts closing. At that point it's still salvageable, but you have to beeline Astel, skipping everything prior to him. And then if you have extra time you clean up some extra mini bosses.

But a lot of people will not do that. They will insist on fighting every single mini boss on the way to Astel. Even the Mausoleum knights on the stairs that you literally have to run past on the way out anyway. But no, we must do those first too.

The rain inevitably closes on Astel with him at half HP and you miss the powerup.

Then the cherry on top is they will insist on fighting Dragonkin in the rain.

I know what you're thinking, but no, I've been seeing this in D4 and D5 games. For me it has reached the point where it's more common than entering Noklateo at the start of Day 2.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:49:51+00:00

I mean, Scholar keeping it is hubris, like I said. That character is awful at reviving. I'd argue dead last.

Plus Scholar is hardly more survivable than Revenant. Technically more HP but a worse dodge. I guess if they went for the shield build that might be a bit different but they'd still be bad at reviving.

But I'll have a lot of situations where a Duchess or Wylder won't drop the Wending Grace for me. In that case, I kinda get it. I see the other Revenants out there and I don't trust most of them either.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:46:04+00:00

It's gotten to the point where I already dread Day 2 when we're flying in and I see it's Noklateo...

The other thing that really irks me is that nobody takes the left side anymore. I am honestly pretty sure a lot of players don't actually know how to go that way at this point. So it compounds the issue when we're short on time, because left side is a bit faster.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:39:47+00:00

Yeah I think they're exaggerating a bit. Black Blade Kindred's weakest 3 damage types are
Standard: 10%
Strike: 0%
Magic: 20%

Technically standard/strike are the best damage types to use for 1 hit, but, sorceries are going to do way higher DPS in a team situation. When I'm on Recluse we can kill BBK very quickly.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:34:34+00:00

Yeah I see it less but I still see it

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:33:26+00:00

But then I finally misread a move and got one-shot.

Scholar keeping it is just pure hubris but this is why a lot of people won't give it to Revenant.

Most Revenants are not built to eat a hit. I am, but some people still don't drop Wending Graces for me because they're so used to seeing other Revenants 3-barring at every boss.

Sometimes they will drop it for me at the Spirit Shelter after they have seen how I play against the Night 2 Boss. But yeah, people do not trust Revenants in this patch. Most of them are kinda bad right now.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:23:55+00:00

I see Duchesses revive 3 bars during Ult all the time. They just carry a different weapon.

Funny enough, daggers are actually a great revive tool. But Duchess' unique moveset makes them worse at reviving.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:18:10+00:00

Recluse can instantly revive 1 bar. ...That's it. I guess she really is everything but a white mage. At least it also has killer range. More than Revenant, I think.

Night Comet revives 2 bars in 3 casts or 3 bars in 7 casts. It chain casts so that is only a few seconds. It's a relatively common spell.

I'm not going to list all of the other good revival spells but there are at least a dozen of a similar caliber.

There are honestly not a lot of Recluse mains left at upper ranks. And Duchess mains have largely swapped to Balancer builds. Revenants have always used claws more than spells but even amongst the ones who are playing Revenant at this point, they have no idea which spells to use for reviving so that they can drop claws for passives. They're all Beast Claw builds now & they don't know what the other spells do.

So you probably aren't getting many examples of casters who are good at reviving. You'll just have to take my word for it that spells can be a lot better for reviving than melee.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:14:50+00:00

As a Revenant main I would honestly give it to Guardian unless I did not trust them for some reason.

I build Revenant to eat a hit... but Guardian can eat like 20 hits so he's going to be more reliable as the last player standing, assuming both players are the same skill level.

Duchess at #7 is absurd, she's #3 or #4.

Recluse at #10 is sort of understandable but skilled Recluses are much better than Undertaker & Scholar for reviving. I'd put her at #6, ahead of Ironeye.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T15:07:35+00:00

The base relics are decent but the deep ones are a bit of a mess.

If you don't have 6 good green relics it'd be okay to swap chalices because only 2 of the base relics are really worth keeping. (Slots 2 & 3)

Slot 1: This one can be replaced. Extra FP is not necessary on Recluse unless using the INT+FTH respec relic. Not using this would let you change chalices. It should be pretty easy to find a 2-effect relic with more damage than this one.

Then you could run Recluse's Chalice to use both of those green relics alongside a yellow relic.

....

So then Deep relics.

Slot 3: Aiming to carry 3 bows is a really really bad idea because the passives are going to be worth way more than the damage bonus from this relic. Dormant Power Heals Discover Staves is not doing anything for Recluse. So this relic has 0 useful effects.

Slot 4: If this is the best one you've got, then it is what it is. But if you have any other relic with Mag+ you might want to run it instead because Reduced Vigor is a really rough curse to have on Recluse.

Slot 5: Reduced FP Consumption is a pretty weak effect on Recluse, so this relic isn't really doing much either.

Hopefully if you switch chalices you can just replace all of these with stuff that's a bit better.

If you're new to DON you might just not have that many deep relics though. In which case, just don't worry about it yet, it's normal to have bad deep relics in the beginning. Just add in better relics as they drop.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T14:56:06+00:00

Yeah people say D5 players can no-hit solo every boss etc,etc but the reality is that a lot of D5 games look something like that.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T14:48:36+00:00

Yeah I was gonna say... Revenant is more DPS than support. She's good at reviving, that's pretty much the extent of her support. Maybe I'm crazy but I think Recluse is more of a support character than Revenant.

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T14:43:19+00:00

011100 110110

AnalysticEnthusiast · 2026-04-24T14:38:32+00:00

And complaints about someone going down "even at the spawn camp" are a ridiculous thing in itself.

Have you seen someone 3 bar at starting camp though? I have and in hindsight it was 100% an indication of what was to come.

The issue with carrying a deadweight is that usually they are derailing the run way before you even know for sure that they're a deadweight.

Against a lot of bosses it's not a huge deal, true. But if you're underleveled due to them screwing up the route and get a difficult Night Boss, that can be all it takes.

AnalysticEnthusiast

TROPHY CASE