Join the Herald of Torpor, as you explore the dark realm of the Obsidian Depths!
We have a new Faction to delve, as well as lots of new troops, ruled by Obsidiaxas!
To celebrate the release of this new Faction, we will be running a Faction event over the weekend for Obsidian Depths.
Umm I just want to acknowledge how seriously cool those charts are @TimeKnight thank you!
Thank you. Of course, I still use this charts. 
So why don’t we have this fraction on the map yet?
maybe reload your game.
Yep, helped, thanks
A really fast fun team that will take you to 500 without breaking a sweat
Use cauldron on snoozebog once (or twice later on) to give gargoyles massive hitting power. Double attack then doubled again etc.
Snoozebog is easily spammable with potions.
[7206,6622,1086,6622,3079,3,2,2,3,1,3,1,14035]
(The full Faction team run @ 500 was a bit tricky with rampant gargoyle gems spawning all over but only took two tries 
)
ps
Thought I would add the faction team in case anyone interested. +50% hoard stats via kingdom & 200
@TimeKnight : Regarding your handy tables? Do you still believe that Hell Gate and Labyrinth require 400+ True Hoard, or should that number be brought down a little bit on account of Potions of Power being available for “ordinary” delve runs once Hoard 200 is reached in a particular faction?
I’m asking almost purely out of “academic curiousity” at this point, because I’ve recently beaten both delves PF-500 at significantly lower numbers, albeit also with amounts of “good luck” involved. Fury/Death Mark spam on Hell Gate (plus Charon exploding Gargoyle gems), and a little good fortune plus a Dark King’s Hoard room on the Labyrinth.
My experiences probably aren’t what I’d call “typical”, but I do wonder just how much lower the required hoard would be for PF-500 for the nastiest factions with the recent changes in 6.3.
re: Labyrinth. Just beat the pure faction after reading your post at Hoard lv 199/50% Hoard. The problem of this delve has always been the damage output vs the enemy Horned Guardian. So with potions now, its easier now in the sense that its not easier at all. (until hoard is invested past 200+)
What it will do is help your supporting cast live longer to make it into the boss room with barrier at the start of battle. From there the extra explosions at the start of battle and enchant will allow you to snowball faster into bursting down their Horned Guardian and the barrier will give you one extra chance to keep the damage on your Mechataurs high.
Depending on your luck distribution on gems at the start of the boss room, your support troops can still die quickly and the pure faction won’t be any easier.
I still only beat the faction with my Horned Guardian. Its definitely more doable though.
The Gargoyle gems were mildly annoying as those things tried to death mark my Horned Guardian on 3 separate occasions. (and you wouldn’t run Rhinotaur for the sole purpose of popping those things) If I had to do it again, I’d wait until Gargoyle Gems were gone.
Thanks a lot for the shout out, Kafka. 
Only reach 200 today, will get to 300 on this Sunday, and 500 next Sunday. Might be easier then with double buff probably gone, only Construct buff left, as the next Glory troop is also one.
Even at 200, the boost ratio and amount of Gargoyle Gems are insane. Will work every well in your favor, or ruin everything if they trigger them instead. The key might be killing their golem quicky, so they can’t explode, and time your golem to only cast when their dragon is about to cast too, so they don’t get boost too much.
I did consider the effect of Power Potion, but decide to keep the number simple. I have adjusted a few, especially Amanithrax and Wyrmrun, as they’re significantly worse after spell/trait change.
Main thing to consider, True hoard is not Hoard level, but that with a lot adds on. Kingdom Hoard Bonus, medals, Campaign stats, and guild task bonus will all boost your number a bit.
As Magic is the most important that appear every 11 Hoard levels, and Power Potion give 7 magic along with life/armor/attack, so it’s pretty much around 70 level added to your hoard, on top of kingdom hoard bonus. Other are too small to calculate, but they helped.
For example, my Hell Gate’s hoard level is at 250. My Maugrim Woods is at 18, so 75% more. So it’s 250+187 = 437 True Hoard before Potions was added, but 437+210 = 647 True Hoard after 3 Power Potion was added.
So if I want to do it again, just Hoard Level 200 would be enough: 200+150+70 = 420 True Hoard. The Labyrinth with 50% would be 370, close enough with some other stats bonus.
So overall, going over Hoard Level 200 is never necessary now, as even the 2 hardest ones, it should be enough. As you can see in the chart, half of them is good at minimum 100, some need a bit higher, Extreme might need 150+, and insane at max 200.
I use Chalcedony along with Obsidiaxis and so far, other than some mimic getting lucky with mana drops I’ve had little to no difficulty.
I know most folks aren’t keen on gargoyle gems but in some delves they can really help. I finished Indrajit and Dark court last week at horde 100. But its late campaign so my true hoard was over 150 I suppose. I am not far into this one as yet (200 pure) but can see explosive mid rooms being potentially problematic.
I got all faction level 500 on my 2nd try. Thought the game was over, then CPU out of the blue get lucky and kill two of my troops, but that does not matter. It was a fun event overall, especially when you get to explode those gorgyle gems in front of CPU, and even one death marked and killed their AoE. Luck oriented but that is to be expected.
4/5 stars
Just realized no one ever actually answered for Hell Gate.
Hell Gate still sucks. Potions without Power haven’t made this delve any easier.
1a. 25% skull reduction from potions isn’t a real answer to skulls.
1b. Fury starting the battle with a Bonestorm is absolutely stupid in this team and you have to get the Bonestorm trait to get the 50% start.
1c. You have to use Fury on your team for Deathmark to give yourself a chance to snipe out problems hiding in the back of the enemy team (think Sheggra).
3a. My Judge of the Dread is doing 94 dmg on 10% week, week 10 of the current campaign with 199 Hoard/KL 14 + 20 dmg on 40/40 soul boost. Expecting that troop to cast 10 times (at 16 mana cost) before your team starts falling apart is unrealistic. Not enough damage. Lemure also has spell damage reduction to extend the experience.
3b. The 50% soul boost on Charonas is really only adding 10 damage.
3c. Charonas exploding with no skull reduction is suicidal.
3d. Judge of the Dead’s 3rd trait is useless without running 1 or more Charonas. Reaches cap too easily.
3e. There’s no other real ways to get souls besides Charonas or Judge of the Dead’s 3rd trait which limits Lemure. Fury’s soul gain may as well not exist.
3f. You lose the 50% soul cap increase when 1 or more Charonas die. Not hard to do with no skull reduction on the team.
3e. Charonas exploding all purple actively makes it harder to fill Judge of the Dead.
4a. Lemure is unreliable when it really needed to be reliable to keep this faction team afloat. Desperately needs a buff to eliminate 2 different stats, instead of just 1.
Hell Gate is a hodgepodge of bad ideas put together to create the worst possible experience possible for a pure faction team. Pharos-Ra has managed to cap and limit the Soul gain design space at 150% which isn’t as much as it sounds when the standard troop is stuck at 50%. The entire faction team is low damage and high liability.
The next faction troop created for this Deep Delve will easily be an improvement, because almost anything is an improvement. Problem is that relief won’t be around for another 3+ years. Yikes.
Charonas or Lemure needs skull reduction. Lemure needs a buff and Judge of the Dead needs a different 3rd trait. This team needs an “Extreme Greed” version of Necromancy to give it a better feel. 100%+. This team needs more ways to get souls. Fury needs to lose the skull storm trait.
This pure faction team is actually really terrible. The more I type about it and try to do it again, the more I hate it. I actually don’t remember how I managed to do this with potions, go figure.
I actually managed to beat Hell Gate about two weeks ago. The potions were a mild help, but you’re still way too dependent on Death Mark to do a lot of the work for you.
Although I replaced the Lemure I had been using with Charonas, both because I found Lemure underwhelming and because I wanted a way to clear Gargoyle Gems. Not that the latter helped me very much, but I was more comfortable with a level of mana generation with that spell as opposed to playing stat roulette with Lemure on those rare times where his spell wouldn’t leave a board for the AI to exploit.
