Hunting
Every vampire must feed. Beyond Death Valley lie four wild wards, one in each direction: Gallows Moor to the north, The Rookery to the east, The Drowned Fens to the south and The Ashen Reach to the west. Every kill pays Blood, gold and Hunting experience, and you drink from each one, which restores a little Lifeforce.
Every hunt starts on the Hunting page. There are three ways in:
• Expeditions: the main hunt. Plan a route into a ward and fight your way to the den at the end. Expeditions pay 12% more than a Quick hunt.
• The Daily Hunt: one expedition, the same for everyone that day, scored on a leaderboard.
• Quick hunt: no route and no stops. Pick a ward and a depth, spend 1, 5, 10 or 25 Actions, and take what comes.
The same page leads down into the Ossuary and out to the River Stairs.
The wilds are split into four regions by depth:
• The Blighted Outskirts: up to 50 steps
• The Wildwood: 51 to 200 steps
• The Barrows: 201 to 500 steps
• The Hollow Deep: beyond 500 steps
Each region has its own creatures and its own grade of crafting materials. The valley's time of day and weather change what is out there.
The catch: your normal reward is paid at once, but the bonus from Bloodlust is held as unbanked spoils. Bank them by going home at the end of an expedition, or with the bank button on the Hunting page. If you fall first, the unbanked spoils and the streak are lost. You never lose your base rewards, only the bonus you gambled on.
• Frenzied: hits 35% harder
• Armored: 35% more health
• Swift: quicker, and strikes twice more often
• Vampiric: heals 4% with every hit
Champions carry two affixes, and a long streak makes them more likely. An elite kill pays three times the usual reward and adds 3 to your streak. Slipping away from one instead costs a quarter of your unbanked spoils.
• Landmarks: four in each ward, at growing depths. Discover one and its story goes in your Codex, and you hunt that ward for +2% Blood and gold for good (+2% more for finding all four). Find all sixteen to earn the title Wayfarer of the Four Wards.
• Rival hunters: real vampires near your level from other covens. Duel them at full strength for triple spoils, or slip past. They hear about it either way.
• The roaming terror: each week one named creature roams one ward. It is deadlier than an elite and pays five times the spoils. The first hunter in the valley to slay it that week earns the Monster Hunter title.
Codex bonuses apply to hunting only, never to battles against other vampires.
Every hunt starts on the Hunting page. There are three ways in:
• Expeditions: the main hunt. Plan a route into a ward and fight your way to the den at the end. Expeditions pay 12% more than a Quick hunt.
• The Daily Hunt: one expedition, the same for everyone that day, scored on a leaderboard.
• Quick hunt: no route and no stops. Pick a ward and a depth, spend 1, 5, 10 or 25 Actions, and take what comes.
The same page leads down into the Ossuary and out to the River Stairs.
Range and depth
The deeper you hunt, the stronger the prey and the richer the reward. Your Hunting Skill sets how deep you can go: three steps for every skill level. Hunting trains it.The wilds are split into four regions by depth:
• The Blighted Outskirts: up to 50 steps
• The Wildwood: 51 to 200 steps
• The Barrows: 201 to 500 steps
• The Hollow Deep: beyond 500 steps
Each region has its own creatures and its own grade of crafting materials. The valley's time of day and weather change what is out there.
Bloodlust
Every win in a row builds a Bloodlust streak. Each kill in the streak adds +2% Blood and gold, up to +100% at 50 kills.The catch: your normal reward is paid at once, but the bonus from Bloodlust is held as unbanked spoils. Bank them by going home at the end of an expedition, or with the bank button on the Hunting page. If you fall first, the unbanked spoils and the streak are lost. You never lose your base rewards, only the bonus you gambled on.
Elites and champions
Elite creatures wait at elite lairs on expedition routes. They are built to threaten you at any level, and each has an affix:• Frenzied: hits 35% harder
• Armored: 35% more health
• Swift: quicker, and strikes twice more often
• Vampiric: heals 4% with every hit
Champions carry two affixes, and a long streak makes them more likely. An elite kill pays three times the usual reward and adds 3 to your streak. Slipping away from one instead costs a quarter of your unbanked spoils.
What you'll find out there
• Harvests: a rich seam for your gathering job, with a big haul and gathering experience. Routes always try to include one for gatherers, and kills drop materials too.• Landmarks: four in each ward, at growing depths. Discover one and its story goes in your Codex, and you hunt that ward for +2% Blood and gold for good (+2% more for finding all four). Find all sixteen to earn the title Wayfarer of the Four Wards.
• Rival hunters: real vampires near your level from other covens. Duel them at full strength for triple spoils, or slip past. They hear about it either way.
• The roaming terror: each week one named creature roams one ward. It is deadlier than an elite and pays five times the spoils. The first hunter in the valley to slay it that week earns the Monster Hunter title.
Wear and repairs
Hunting wears your gear: about one point of durability for every 100 Actions you hunt, and a point more if you fall. Worn gear hits and guards for less. Repair it at the Master Smith (the price rises with the item's level), or use a smith's repair kit: Weaponsmiths make hones and whetstones, Armorsmiths make patches and mending kits. A kit restores 10 durability to your most-worn piece and still costs a little gold in flux. Covens can cover part of their members' repair bills. See Gear.The Ossuary
Beneath the city lie the bone-crypts. The Ossuary is a live dungeon crawl: 1 Action to go down and 1 Action for each floor after that. Every third floor is a den, and the haul is banked at each stair; fall and you lose only that floor's haul. Go alone or in a party of two to four. Reach floor 10 for Ossuary Delver and floor 20 for Lord of the Ossuary. The free Nightly Ossuary puts every vampire in the same borrowed body for one ranked try a night.The Hunter's Codex
The Codex records every creature you have hunted. Each creature has three milestones: Discovered, Studied (50 kills) and Mastered (250 kills). Study a whole region's creatures for a permanent +1% hunting Blood and gold, and master them for +2% more, up to +12% in all. Codex milestones also unlock titles: Apex Predator (100 elites), Beastmaster (study every creature) and Extinctionist (master every creature).Codex bonuses apply to hunting only, never to battles against other vampires.