The Depths Fight Back: warbands, surges and Heralds

From Act II on, foes come as warbands instead of loose crowds. Act I plays as it always did (and Gallows Hill is a little gentler), so the first hours stay a welcome.

Warbands

• Every body has a job. Swarmers come in dozens and fall to any sweep. Rushers charge in a straight line, and a pack of them is the danger. Bruisers wind up a wide blow you can read. Archers and casters hang back, menders heal, banners drum their pack on.
• Waking a pack. A pack you wake takes a breath (about 0.45 s) before it strikes, so you can see what you pulled.
• They go home. A pack you drag more than 22 tiles from home gives up once nobody has been near it for a few seconds, walks back and heals there.
• Some go round you. A big pack sends a few of its fighters to your back.

Leaders

• Warleaders carry an aura their pack fights by (faster, tougher, healed by the fallen, or rallied by a horn you can interrupt). Their pack hits harder while they live. Kill the leader and the pack breaks and runs.
• Champion packs are 3 or 4 champions sharing one power. They take turns using it, so it comes in a rhythm rather than all at once.

Surges and ambushes

• Swarm Surges. Some big rooms erupt in three waves from burrow cracks and doorways. Break a crack and its share of the waves stays underground. Epic and Legendary floors can hold 2.
• From behind. On most floors a lurking pack waits for you to walk past, then comes through the door you came in by. A puff of dust at the doorway is the warning.

Heralds (from Act III)

• Every floor holds a Herald: one of the named wanderers, grown up. It fights in a set order of three moves, and the big one is always the same and always shown on the floor first.
• After its big move it catches its breath and takes more damage. Stun it, freeze it or hit it hard enough and it staggers.
• It drops a cache like the wanderers always have.

Blows you have to step out of

• From Act II, a blow that marks the floor before it lands can't be dodged by luck: your dodge chance and Evasion don't save you from it. Your feet do, and so do blinks, dashes and wards.
• Never all at once. A single blow can't take you from (nearly) full health to nothing: it leaves you at least 30% (a boss's long wind-up, at least 10%). Hardcore heroes can trust it.

What the colours mean

• Red: step out. Orange: step out and stay out (it leaves something burning on the floor). Blue: interrupt it: an interrupt, your class's big move landing on the caster, a stun on a lesser foe, breaking its Poise, or stepping out of its sight all count. Yellow: break it: its Poise fills twice as fast while it winds up. Teal: stand together: everyone inside the circle shares the blow, anyone outside takes it whole.
• Ignoring a blue cast costs you. A Hex Bolt leaves you Hexed (you take 25% more damage and get 30% less healing, up to twice over), a healer's Mend patches up its whole pack and restores their Poise, a brood mother's brood grows angrier instead of bigger, and a boss's Gathering Fury makes it Unbreakable while it lasts.
• Time to answer. A heavy blow always shows for at least 0.7 s (0.8 s in the endgame), a cast you can interrupt 1.2 s, and a blow that could take half your health 1.5 s, with a flashing white rim and a fuse that burns down. Two of those never land on you closer than 1.5 s apart. A blue cast or a deadly blow aimed at you from off screen shows a small arrow at the edge of the screen.
• Longer warnings (Settings → Accessibility) makes every enemy wind-up a quarter longer. It's allowed in Hardcore; runs with it on are marked Assisted and don't post to the leaderboards.

Harder where it was too easy

• The late campaign is tougher, most of all in the last levels before 20, and the world now notices what your spells and procs do, not only your stats.
• Higher Pyre Tiers pack their floors a little denser and bring more elite packs.
• Swarms are worth less each, so a surge doesn't flood you with loot; your gains per hour stay about where they were.

See also

• Monsters