Guides/Endgame
Dungeons: the eight the game quietly left behind
Development stopped in favour of fractals, but the dungeons never went anywhere. How many there are, how story mode differs from explorable, and why anyone still runs them.
Dungeons are the oldest group content in the game. They rarely come up, because development stopped in favour of fractals and no new ones are coming.
The eight that exist still work, though, and they hold things you cannot get anywhere else.
The list
- Ascalonian Catacombs
- Caudecus’s Manor
- Twilight Arbor
- Sorrow’s Embrace
- Citadel of Flame
- Honor of the Waves
- Crucible of Eternity
- The Ruined City of Arah
Parties are five, though smaller groups can attempt them.
Two modes
Story mode is the narrative one. It follows Destiny’s Edge, the fractured group of heroes whose members turn up throughout your personal story (how that works). There are cutscenes and dialogue, and the runs themselves are gentle: a random group gets through without trouble.
Explorable mode unlocks after story and asks for considerably more coordination. Each dungeon has several paths, usually three, and the party votes on which to take.
Levels
Story modes begin at level 30 with Ascalonian Catacombs and run up to 78 with Crucible of Eternity. Explorable versions sit 5 to 10 levels higher. Arah and fractals want 80.
Which makes dungeons the rare content you can enter long before level 80. For a player still levelling, it is close to the only way to see group play.
Rewards
Explorable mode pays Tales of Dungeon Delving: 20 per completion, plus a first-run-of-the-day bonus of 35 to 80 more.
They are spent with a Dungeon Merchant on weapons, armour, runes and other items. The dungeon skins are distinctive and appear nowhere else, which is precisely why appearance collectors still run them.
Are they worth it
For looks, yes. Dungeon armour sets are recognisable and only obtainable here.
For story, yes. Story modes explain who Destiny’s Edge are, and without that parts of the personal story read oddly.
For income, no. The rewards have aged, and the time goes further on metas and world bosses or fractals.
For learning group play, yes, with care. The mechanics are old and occasionally unfair, and the community is used to running specific paths quickly.
The state they are in
This is preserved content. It is not balanced or updated, some paths are cleared in strange ways, and finding a group is harder than for anything else.
But it is free, it opens at level 30, and it shows the game as it was at launch. As an excursion, it is worth an evening.