Treasure Caves

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The Treasure Caves is a sub-dungeon located inside the Blackwood Depths. It is a hidden dungeon known for its pile of uncollected gold stashed away at the end of the caves. It houses various elemental dragons, golden creatures, and finally adventurers, attracted by their insatiable desire for wealth. The adventurers that come exploring here only make off with a small fraction of the treasure in the cave and leave much to their disappointment, only to be driven back to it for more.

There are two ways to access the Treasure Caves. The main method is to get to the Lowest Reaches in Blackwood Depths (going east of the Crystalline Forest, going down in the Lower Depths until you get to the Lowest Reaches). Then, on the first left that you see as you go down, you'll reach a portal that takes you at the bottom-right section of the Treasure Caves. As you ascend, you see the entrance blocked off by some boulders, and a barrel of TNT. Exploding the TNT will open up the rest of the cave, and save the location to the Depths teleport rune.

The alternative method is to use the elevator shaft east of the Moonlight Well in Blackwood (the well can be reached by heading south out of Blackwood Caverns, then taking the first right that you see past the poisonous plants). Following a five minute ride down the Elevator, while having to survive from several Space Station robots that spawn on the platform, you'll reach the upper-left part of the Treasure Caves. It is highly recommended that you have a full group to survive the onslaught of robots with a diverse mix of elements.

Note that if you use the elevator to access the Treasure Caves, you are unable to reach the entrance to the Lowest Reaches. This is due to the boulder cutting off the entrance from the Treasure Caves side. The only way to get rid of the boulder is to activate the TNT from the Blackwood Depths side.

The recommended level for the Treasure Caves is 39 to 40. By default, the dungeon only has one mode of difficulty, separate from the Blackwood Depths.

Unlocking the Elevator

To unlock the elevator, you must first go to the Deep Blackwood Jungle, where the large mechanical door to the elevator is located. It can be reached by first going south, and then east of Blackwood Caverns to the Moonlight Well. Going further east of the Moonlight Well will take you to the Deep Blackwood Jungle.

The Off Limits quest can be obtained from the Strange Access Mechanism on the left side of the mechanical door. The quest hints that you should defeat the final boss in Space Station to obtain the keycard for the door. Note that when you defeat the Space Station boss, you have a very narrow window of time to collect the keycard before Akia teleports you off. It is recommended that you survive the boss's third form, stay on top of the boss moments before it's death and hold the R (item pick-up) key.

The following quest leads you back to Benjamin in Ashaya Village. You'll be instructed to find the technician (an NPC of the player selectLOL) in Ashaya Toy Factory that is fixing up the C.R.U. (located in the basement of the toy factory, top-left of the map). The technician can only be found when the Code Injections world event occurs, so it is a matter of patience and luck. Note that world events are more likely to occur the more you do them. At the end of the quest line, you'll have permanent access to the Elevator.

The trophy Going Down requires at least one or more members of your group to survive the Elevator ride for five minutes. You can still be knocked out, and obtain this trophy, as long as someone makes it.

Detareus (Optional)

Name Detareus
Level 42
Classification Brute
Element Neutral 2
Health 364,000
Resistances Immune to stun, freeze, silence, sleep, and charm. Extrasensory.

Detareus is the fifth boss of the Blackwood Depths - Treasure Caves, located at the dead end south-west of the cave. It is an optional boss that can be skipped and refought later (it is not needed for the Critical Care trophy). Regardless of the route taken to get into Treasure Caves, both ways are heavily guarded by various hostile groups (such as the elemental dragons, lotuses, and crystallized monsters), and require clearing before engaging Detareus.

Detareus' defending element is Neutral 2, making him vulnerable to Ghost (+50%), as well as weak to Light, Dark, and Poison (all 25%). A Mage can choose any element they want for this battle, however Fire or Water is strongly recommended. Detareus does not spawn any minions during the fight, except for the treasure chests that are used later in one of Detareus's attacks.

Detareus only has one mode of difficulty. Similar to Stewie in Crypt, he will summon good (contains a potion) and bad chests (contains a skull) randomly around the map (top-left, bottom-left, center and right). This is signaled to the group with a message at the top of their screen, saying "You feel a faint breeze blowing through the cavern ..." The group will need to coordinate their efforts in communicating which of the chests are good or bad, as they are only revealed to the player for a couple of seconds, and grab the good chests to survive the impending Heavensfall ability (hits all players, causes 1-hit KO unless you've opened a good chest seconds prior to the attack).

The main abilities that Detareus will use are:

  • Ancient Curse: N/A
  • Snap: This is Detareus' version of the Swipe attack that hits all targets in front. Players usually call this "frontal", meaning that only the tank must engage the boss in front, while the others stay behind to avoid taking additional damage.
  • Charge: Detareus rushes to a player, dealing weak neutral damage.
  • Fire Ball: Hits a player for ~1000 fire damage and applies Embers on that player for 10 seconds. Players shouldn't stack during the fight because it can hurt them too--this spell should be smited.
  • Fire Breath: Hits all targets in front of the boss for ~500 fire damage every second for 3 seconds. This cannot be smited and should not be dodged, as Detareus can turn around during this spell.
  • Heavensfall: An ability with a long casting time that deals two very heavy-damage blasts on each player, which can easily kill if you didn't grab a chest/the wrong one. Grabbing a good (potion above) chest gives you immunity to the blasts, but only for several seconds.

Strategy

General Set-up

The tank should have Detareus facing to the right, while the group remains unstacked on the left (behind Detareus). It is recommended for the healer to stand on the top of the gold pile to take care of the top chests. The tank cannot smite Fire Breath and should not try to dodge it either, because Detareus can turn around in the middle of casting (they can use Endurance to lower the damage taken). However, the tank should attempt to smite Fire Ball, which can hit multiple players if they are close together (hence the need for everyone to be unstacked).

Good/Bad Chests, and Heavensfall

After a while, Detareus will prepare to set the stage for Heavensfall by first spawning good/bad chests (drops after the yellow text "You feel a faint breeze blowing through the cavern ..." appears at the top of the screen). Pay attention to which chests have potions and which have skulls above them. The group can come up with different schemes in order to mark which chest is good or bad (dropping junk items, having the group leader use the Marker skills, and/or having each member call out the order of good/bad chests on one side of the map).

The chests with skulls do not provide immunity to Heavensfall; instead they cause the person who opened the chest to receive the Ancient Curse debuff that deals damage over time. The chests with potions do provide immunity to Heavensfall, but only for as long as 6-8 seconds. Do NOT take the good chest BEFORE Detareus starts casting Heavensfall, or else the buff with immunity to the attack might go away before Detareus actually uses it.

Once Detareus begins to use Heavensfall, the tank might want to signal to the group by pinging (clicking) on the mini-map that Heavensfall has begun casting. Each player then has to run over to the good chest that they want, and declare that they'll be taking it from x side of the map (such as "taking < good" in response to "< good bad bad"). If the group does not signal properly, one player might accidentally steal a chest that the other was hoping to take, putting the group in jeopardy as one to two members of the group are knocked out.

Additionally, if a tank has the Divine Plea skill and one player (or themselves) is missing a good chest to take from, they can use Divine Plea to shield that player to save them from the Heavensfall attack. This can only be done once per battle. Repeat both strategies as needed, until Detareus is defeated.

Notes

  • Other examples of quick things that you can say to claim a certain chest during the fight with Detareus might be: "taking far <", "taking on me", "<player> take ^".
  • Detareus has a 10% chance to drop the Philosopher's Gel, which allows you to turn an existing Crystalspike Lizard pet permanently into a golden color. Tradeable, and drops for each member of the group, as long as they were part of the boss fight to begin with. You can keep getting more of the same Crystalspike Lizard pets (for 175 gold each) from the pet trader near the entrance to the Blackwood Blast Mine, as long as they are in a different color.
    • You can exchange the gel to Andy in Ashaya Village for a Copper Gel, which turns the Crystalspike Lizard pet permanently into a copper color.
  • The Silverscale Lizard has a 10% chance to appear in the Treasure Caves, guaranteed to drop the Silver Philosopher's Gel. The gel turns an existing Crystalspike Lizard pet permanently into a silver color. Untradeable, and drops for each member of the group, as long as they were in the map to begin with.
  • The zone drop, Gemmed Pawguard has a small chance to drop from defeating monsters in Treasure Caves. It is tradeable, but binds when used.
  • Ed: Original credit goes to Lukas, for coming up with most of the information on Detareus before I made some changes to it.