Dungeoneering/Hard mode

See also: Dungeoneering/Hard mode/Strategies

Hard Mode is a Dungeoneering feature that was released 10 September 2013. It can be obtained as a reward after completing the elite set of Daemonheim tasks. It is only available for complexity 6 dungeons and makes the dungeon as difficult as it can randomly be.

Requirements

In order to gain access to Hard Mode (and the title), players interested in accessing it need to have the following:

• Complete the Elite Daemonheim tasks
  • Have at least 95 Dungeoneering
    • To fully complete Hard Mode, players need 119 Dungeoneering
• ~90+ in all skills

Players who have not completed the Elite tasks may take part in the Hard Mode with another player who has. This requires the player who has completed the Elite tasks to form and lead the dungeon. They then invite the players without the tasks complete into the floors.

• NOTE: since these players don't have the Elite tasks completed, keep in mind that these players are not be given credit for these floors. For them, it reads as, "You have completed floor: 0; lowest incomplete floor: 0"

How to access Hard Mode

To start Hard Mode, select a floor and the difficulty to Complexity 6 via ring or via ladder. Once the difficulty is set, the player is prompted with a screen that asks "Activate Hard Mode?"; a simple yes or no follows.

If the player selects no, they have access to normal floors.

If the player selects yes, they have access to Hard Mode.

Players are unable to select the floor size they wish. If the party is 1-2 people, the floor size is Medium; if 3-5, the floor size is Large.

Once inside, the floors are similar to normal dungeons, aside from the differences listed below.

Differences with Hard Mode

• At the top left, under the Current keys section, "Hard Mode!" is written
• The "small" option does not exist. The number of players in each team alters the size of the floor:
  • A party of 1-2 gets a mandatory medium map. Having 2 players in the party is strongly recommended.
    • If there is 1 player, they should expect little to no food and enough monsters.
    • If there are 2 players, they should expect to see an increase of monsters and higher-tiered monsters.
      • It is strongly encouraged to have at least 2 players per team.
  • A party of 3-5 gets more monsters per room and a mandatory large map.
    • If there are 3 players, they should expect to see even more monsters and even more items, but if one player leaves or logs out, then the dungeon may initiate a floor timer of 15 minutes.
    • If there are 4 or 5 players, they should expect to see an obscene amount of monsters, but due to these monsters, the floor may take longer than expected.
• All monsters and bosses spawn at their maximum levels.
  • Due to the high combat level, certain boss monsters are difficult and may take a few minutes to kill, as opposed to a normal floor. This can be extremely tedious if doing a solo-floor. Bosses begin to have special abilities. For example, World-gorger Shukarhazh begins to heal if no players are in its room.
• The chance of encountering slayer monsters is drastically increased.
  • Multiple slayer monsters may be encountered in a single room
• The chance of finding tier 8+ items throughout the floors is increased
• All doors behave like guardian doors, regardless of what kind of door it is. The "guardian eye" above the door does not appear. This means, you cannot exit any room without teleporting out of it. If you attempt open or leave a room, you receive the following message: The door won't unlock until all the guardians in the room have been slain.
  • You can teleport out of the faux-guardian doors and dead-ends, but you cannot teleport out of boss rooms.
• It is not possible to teleport at all once inside a boss room. That is, even placing a gatestone at one place in the room and teleporting from another place in the room is prohibited.
• All skill doors and challenge rooms require skills of level 90 or higher, even if doing so makes the dungeon impossible to complete.
  • The "90" doors are crucial doors; this means that this door is on a critical path or leads to a critical path. Any doors higher than 90, specifically pot doors, do not need to be completed.
    • If you lack any 90+ skills, it is recommended to bring a friend who is close to 90+ or is 90+
    • Keep in mind that you are able to boost to these doors.
      • For example, a Gatherer's potion boosts Divination if you need 90.
• The chances of getting Tier 10 and Tier 11 items as boss-drops is extremely high.
• Doors that require boosted stats over 99 (portents or potions) are more common.
• Food is scarcer.
• Daemonheim aura 4 does not bring you back to life.

Progression in Hard Mode vs. Normal Mode

Hard Mode's progression is vastly different than Normal Mode, as there is no way to check which floors were completed. There is a message that appears at the end of each Hard Mode floor, however:

You have completed floor [number] on Hard Mode. Your lowest floor incomplete on hard mode is: [number].

For example, if you have recently completed floor 25, but have not completed floor 2, it reads as:

You have completed floor 25 on Hard Mode. Your lowest floor incomplete on hard mode is: 2. This means players can do three things:

• Complete floor 2, so that the message says "incomplete floor: 3"
• Complete other floors, leaving floor 2 as a guideline
• Players may also write the numbers down.

Unlike Normal Mode, where a player is able to do previous floors in a Theme to check-off other Themed floors, Hard Mode goes floor-by-floor. You cannot do floor 1 twice in hopes of it ticking off floor 2.

Reset

Players are unable to reset their Hard Mode progress. Once a floor is completed in Hard Mode, it is completed. If players need to reset their current progress, that only affects the Normal Mode floors.

That being said, players are able to redo Hard Mode floors and not affect the current progress made.

Rewards

After completing the 60 Floors of Daemonheim in Hard Mode, players are rewarded with a title: "of Daemonheim". This title is also a requirement of the trimmed completionist cape.

To get this title, 119 Dungeoneering is needed to access floor 60.

Trivia

• While not officially stated, 90+ in each skill is required to complete the dungeons due to the critical path always having level 90 requirements on skill doors.
• It does not matter the order in which you complete Hard-Mode.
  • You can start on Floor 60 and work your way backwards, for example. The chatbox displays that your highest floor complete is 60, and your lowest incomplete is 1.
• It is possible to see multiple high level Slayer monsters such as Soulgazers and Edimmus in the same room. Usually, even in a normal five-person large dungeon, there would be only one of these monsters in a room.
• The increased monster level does not have an effect on certain rooms (presently):
  • Suspicious grooves
  • Ghost Room
  • Monolith (sometimes; varies on the amount of people in the party)
  • Mercenary leader (sometimes; varies on the amount of people in the party)
• While monsters have been given a significant boost in terms of their level of difficulty, boostable doors remain the same
• As of 2 October 2013, forced large floors are no longer an issue. Prior to that, however, during the week of 25 September 2013, upon selecting yes, a floor of large size would initiate, regardless of team size.

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