Greetings everyone!

To celebrate the release of Eureka Orthos in Patch 6.35, the FFXIV Community team has invited a prominent Deep Dungeon soloist to chat about his experiences with the content and to get to know more about his achievements. Meet Angelus Demonus!

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Community team: Please introduce yourself to our readers! Can you tell us your character name, World and race, and your main job? How long have you been playing FFXIV?

Angelus Demonus: Hello! I am Angelus Demonus! I am a Partnered Content Creator on Twitch and YouTube who focuses on exclusively Deep Dungeon solo in FFXIV (with a little variety on the side)! My character name is "Angelus Demonus" on Aether/Cactuar. I am a Black Mage Miqo'te in most PvE party content, but I would consider myself more of a Red Mage Miqo'te main when it comes to Deep Dungeon solo.

I have been playing FFXIV way back since the 2.0 Beta and the release in August 2013!

Community team: You have quite a few impressive records within Deep Dungeon (DD) content, what are the ones you're most proud of?

Angelus Demonus: Both of my very first solo clears in Heaven-on-High (HoH) and Palace of the Dead (PotD) definitely stand out, because it was the beginning of everything on my long journey through doing Deep Dungeon solo!

I cleared Heaven-on-High solo four weeks after its release in August 2018, and that provided me so much confidence that helped me then clear Palace of the Dead solo in March 2019!

Since that time, claiming all 19 solo job clears in Heaven-on-High in July 2021 was certainly a huge achievement. But I would definitely consider my AST clear in Palace of the Dead one I am definitely proud of. A nearly 5-6-month journey of over 19 attempts trying to get that clear to claim not only an AST solo clear, but the final job I needed for 19/19 omni solo clears in Palace of the Dead!

Community team: That's certainly an impressive set of achievements! We all know DD runs can be quite spicy sometimes, what was your funniest DD moment?

Angelus Demonus: Oh man, there are definitely so many that have happened! Some that were funny because of the silliest ways to Duty Fail, and others funny because of how ridiculous the situation was.

Some I could highlight were:

- I had one situation where I was walking up to a silver chest with the intention to open it, and there just so happened to be a Frog Transformation Trap right next to it. A silver chest, if it explodes, will deal 70% of your maximum HP and a Frog Trap, coincidentally, will drop your HP to 70% of its max. Well, I just happened to hit a combination of the trap and the exploding chest in such a way that it killed me instantly! That had only happened once in the nearly 6 years I've done Deep Dungeon, and I'll never forget it.

- Another situation was what I called "Chimera Hell". In Palace of the Dead, the community knows that from F187 to F189 tends to result in a high appearance of Chimera/Garm patrols. Well, in one specific situation, I was in a small dead-end room, and I had to deal with SEVEN Chimeras coming toward my direction. SEVEN! I somehow made it out alive, but it was one of the most ridiculous situations I ever had to deal with and honestly, call me crazy, but I hope to be put into that situation more often.

- A hilarious thing I did semi-recently was doing an Elusive Jump on Dragoon on F193 directly into a Luring Trap, which was completely unintentional and I just miss-hit my button. It ended my run shortly after because I had no answer for the three additional enemies that spawned. I had a good laugh about it though, even if it meant roughly 12 hours of climbing 193 floors went down the drain, haha.

Community team: What's the secret to getting good at DD? Can you give a few tips to beginners?

Angelus Demonus: The Deep Dungeon Solo Community has created so many amazing resources, from written guides to video guides, to being around to answer questions even if they seem really simple or really complicated. Personally, I am someone who wanted to showcase every little trick and secret to Deep Dungeon that is available, so people can watch, learn, and absorb all the information possible. Come find me or the various members in the community and we can help point you in the right direction for your clear attempts.

With that said, if you prefer to start the solo journey more or less on your own, there are definitely a few quick tips you can work with right now:

- Play the job you have the most fun with! While the community has suggested metas and ideal jobs for clearing a Deep Dungeon solo, what's more important is you dive in and have fun doing it. You're going to be in for potentially a long journey (aka, lots of hours) for your first solo title; it would be so much more fun to do it your way!

An extremely good example is at the time of this entry, there has been clears in Eureka Orthos solo on WAR, DRK, PLD, SMN, and MCH, all within the first 24-48hrs of the content being released! And I'm sure by the time you read this, many more job varieties would have their clears.

- Prepare to lose and prepare to fail. A common comment I hear from many solo runners is that they are scared to do the next set of floors because they don't want to have to go back to the beginning. This content, whether it was its intention by design or not, benefits from every gamer to just go in, do your best, and take all the lessons you learn from every attempt. Even the veterans who have hundreds of runs under their belt die to unfortunate situations all the time, and we are always learning from each run. Something I like to tell newer runners is for every death you take, you will remember it very vividly and you'll do your best to be sure it doesn't happen again. You can really only die in so many ways in Deep Dungeon. Eventually, you'll run out of new ways to take a death and you'll just go in and get that clear!

Community team: You recently played DD at AGDQ2023* (Awesome Games Done Quick 2023). It was amazing to see FFXIV represented there thanks to you! Can you tell us more about how you prepared for it, and how was the overall experience?

Angelus Demonus: I am someone who overprepares for nearly everything, and this was by far no exception! I had roughly 3 months to get myself ready, so I prepared a total of 6 files to Floor 171: 2 on my Crystal character, 2 on my Primal Character, 1 on my European Character, and 1 on my main on Aether! The European file was an absolute last resort just in case any catastrophic server problems happened on the North American servers, and I figured maybe it wouldn't happen to EU at the same time if it did, haha.

I had notes setup for each floor so I could try to hit important topics to talk about during the run.

I did two "mock runs" with my amazing friend Frosty, who was on my virtual couch/helping commentate during the AGDQ2023 run. Those runs really helped us work on our synergy with our commentary, but a tremendous shoutout to Frosty who not only helped keep our notes straight, but also helped me keep my cool when we experienced a few unforeseen technical issues!

Speaking of the run itself, the experience was absolutely amazing. A common question I saw come up concerning the run was "wow, an MMO speedrun? Solo??". My friends, the community, and all gamers alike were super hyped about the run itself as they were watching, and it was a crazy experience seeing everyone who showed up in-game on the lobby area before F171 and outside in Quarrymill in Cactuar. So many people wanted to be a part of the moment and I'm so happy we were able to create a wonderful memory. This was especially true to the gamers who showed up in that lobby area before F171. For those that don't know, you cannot just walk into that specific area on demand. You must climb all the way to F170, beat the boss, then make sure you don't leave that area or you cannot get back in. That takes about 3-6hrs to do! So many were able to get there and I'll never forget the sight of seeing everyone there.

The Games Done Quick crew were absolutely professional making sure I could do my thing, from the lead up into the big charity event, to the run itself. During the run, when I had some small technical issues, they did their best to guide me live and to keep the show going while the timer was ticking down inside the F171-180 instance.

I am very proud and honored GDQ trusted my run on their charity event showcase, and all I hope is we put on a great display of what FFXIV can offer to a larger audience and the speedrun community.

* You can watch Angelus Demonus' speedrun of Palace of the Dead Floors 171-180 here via the official Awesome Games Done Quick YouTube channel.

Community team: We just released the newest iteration of DD - Eureka Orthos - with Patch 6.35. Can you tell us your thoughts about it? How did differ from the previous DD for you?

Angelus Demonus: I went super hard with the release of Eureka Orthos on RDM. I picked RDM more for sentimental value as it was the job I got The Necromancer and Lone Hero* on! I'm also making it a little hard on myself by staying away from any information currently available as I climb the floors. It's the type of experience you'll only get once and I am having a blast!

Eureka Orthos has been very tough and challenging, but I'm all for it. The number of enemies that can one shot you is insane, and I feel this Deep Dungeon requires so much more knowledge-gathering versus hoping you can react fast enough with a good amount of knowledge sprinkled in. The bosses are very interesting and fresh compared to those in Palace of the Dead (PotD) and Heaven-on-High (HoH). It's been a lot of fun figuring out their mechanics and then trying to execute them. Even with strategies slowly getting secured for each boss, you can't ease up on the entire fight because two or three mistakes and you are dead, as DPS anyway!

Talking with the various members of the Deep Dungeon Community, there is definitely a noticeable amount of care and thought put into the design of Eureka Orthos. The layouts are gorgeous, although frustrating to navigate, with awkward floors designs to the return of the PotD cave layouts. I've been calling them the High Definition (HD) caves, because it's extremely similar to the caves in PotD, but they look so pretty with the different crystal colors and the bright lightning. Overall it makes for a great challenge in my opinion.

Even the music was brilliant and well thought out. Pulse Remix songs in Deep Dungeon??? The one community story I am loving right now is when the "Tumbling Down (Muffled)" song plays. If anyone remembers the World of Darkness alliance raid, when fighting Cerberus, a team has to get devoured and you go inside Cerberus' belly to do mechanics. When inside, the boss music still plays but it's muffled, because you're inside Cerberus. That specific track plays in Eureka Orthos, and the community lore is someone above you is fighting a Crystal Tower Alliance boss, and their music is reverberating to the basement level of Eureka Orthos. Such a cool vibe!

* The Necromancer is the title obtained by clearing Palace of the Dead floor 200 solo, and The Lone Hero is the title obtained by clearing Heaven on High floor 100 solo.

Community team: What is your next challenge within Eureka Orthos?

Angelus Demonus: To get my first solo clear on RDM! Then I'll check to see what the Deep Dungeon Community feels is a short-term favorite job and tackle that job solo. I'll probably be taking some time to push out information and guides to help newer solo runners out before I work towards the omni 19/19 job clear, which will take a very long time, but it'll be a ton of fun!

Community team: Thank you so much for your time and your dedication to DD! Is there one last thing you'd like to say to the readers?

Angelus Demonus: The Deep Dungeon Solo Community is small but growing at an amazing rate. I very much remember when Deep Dungeon first released back in 2016, and I've seen the community grow from just a handful of runners to a worldwide community of runners challenging each other, themselves, and pushing the very limits of what Deep Dungeon has to offer. It's a very welcoming atmosphere, and since the challenge is a solo adventure, everyone is invested in helping each other out to get to their goals, especially since no one else is directly involved with how you progress through deep dungeon solo.

If you ever have questions or need tips and strategies, the community is out there ready to help and share as much intel as we can. You can guarantee I'll be around helping the next person wanting to take a serious attempt at getting any of the three solo titles. I absolutely love when gamers come to me and share their stories of wins, losses, and everything in between!

Good luck out there!

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To follow Angelus' forays into Eureka Orthos, you can find him over on Twitch and YouTube.