The Depths Of Illusive Realm In Wuthering Waves, Explained

While it is one of the persistent endgame modes in Wuthering Waves, the Depths of Illusive Realm also offers rewards and challenges to newer players, thanks to its progression systems and a selection of powerful trial characters. Rewards also increase the higher the difficulty, so knowing how to get the most out of this mode is essential to a steady flow of Astrite.

Understanding the basics of the Depths of Illusive Realm will ensure you can get its rewards every refresh and have the resources to pull for and build the next character you want. We’ll go over all the essential information here.

How The Depths Of Illusive Realm Works

The Depths of Illusive Realm, which you unlock at Union Level 17, is a rogue-lite mode similar to the Simulated Universe from Honkai: Star Rail, with a few key differences.

• You only take one character in at a time.
• The only bonuses your character has are their Skills and weapon stats. Echo buffs are removed.
• Any additional characters you earn provide assist abilities only.
• You can use game-provided characters if you don’t have any at the proper level.
• At high difficulties, you can add modifiers to make the experience easier or harder for fewer or greater rewards.

There are six difficulty levels to Depths of Illusive Realm, starting at level 70 and increasing at increments of five levels until maximum difficulty at level 100. Note that because a character’s maximum level in Wuthering Waves is 90, any enemy higher than that will have inherently increased damage and damage resistance depending on the difference between your character’s level and theirs.

Once you enter the activity, you’ll make a few initial choices:

• An ability buff based on the character you’ve chosen.
• An Echo Skill that provides additional attacks, plus buffs and new abilities once you unlock them.
• A Token that modifies how you progress through the mode.

The mode itself takes place across a number of arenas, starting with ten of them at level 70 and increasing with each difficulty level.

Metaphors

Your first arena will always be a one-encounter area where you face off against a few easy enemies, and once they’re defeated, you can interact with the white cat to choose from one of three Metaphors.

Metaphors are the rogue-like mechanic, in-activity upgrades that not only provide you with improved stats. They all also come in one of four elements, each of which buffs different aspects of your character:

Which elemental buff you choose will depend on two factors: the character you’re using in Depths of Illusive Realm and the Echo you chose at the beginning of the activity.

Between the two, improving the Echo is probably the more important, as their effects can make or break a run. If you collect enough of any two particular elements, you’re liable to have enough buffs to make most fights a cakewalk.

If you come across a Metaphor that doesn’t fit with your current Echo but would markedly improve your build, don’t be afraid to pick it up. That’s especially true of a tier-three Metaphor that increases both Crit Rate and Damage, for instance.

How To Beat Depths Of Illusive Realm

Beating Depths of Illusive Realm is a matter of skill, endurance, and a bit of luck. As a rogue-lite mode, the Metaphors, Echoes, and Tokens you can get are random, so you won’t feel overpowered every run. That said, there are some core strategies you can use to be more consistently successful.

1. Always choose Bridged Dreamscape when it appears. You can add an assist character to your roster by completing the single encounter inside, and these are invaluable at higher difficulties.
2. Choose an Echo that has synergy with your character. Equipping Bell-Borne Geochelone on Shorekeeper, for instance, can make her almost invulnerable with enough investment.
3. When possible, choose Memory of a Fierce Struggle to have multiple arenas and, therefore, multiple Metaphor choices per room.
4. Spend your Dream Fragments wisely. Whenever you meet the Ebony Gatekeeper, spend your currency on Echo-specific upgrades first, then supplement your build with whatever else fits.

Most importantly, upgrade the Thought Evolution progression board. Each run in the Depths of Illusive Realm will award Memory Points, and spending them on Thought Evolution nodes immediately and permanently buffs your character (for the current cycle, anyway). These buffs increase your health and damage, Crit Rate, and provide additional bonuses that make even the hardest, level 100 difficulty a much easier task to overcome.

Don’t be afraid of failure
. If your characters aren’t quite up to snuff build-wise, or you have a bad run with worse RNG, you still get Memory Points to spend on improving your performance in the Depths of Illusive Realm.

Don’t forget that you don’t have to attempt the highest difficulty available to you, and there’s nothing wrong with using Trial characters for the higher difficulties. You’ll still receive Points and Illusive Specimens for participating or completing lower-difficulty runs that you can spend toward eventually dealing with the harder content.

Ultimately, Depths of Illusive Realm tests your fundamentals with each character on your roster. Dodge, parry, and ability usage are all tested here, augmented with the additional power-ups offered by Metaphors.

Depths Of Illusive Realm Rewards

There are two main reward paths in the Depths of Illusive Realm.

1. In-activity Echo and material rewards. For completing major milestones within the Depths of Illusive Realm, you’ll be able to spend 1 of 12 reward points to get a collection of high-rarity Echoes, including boss Echoes, as well as a large number of upgrade materials.
2. Astrite and currencies earned by spending Illusive Specimen at the Illusive Store outside the activity. You’ll need to complete higher and higher difficulties to unlock access to everything, but the Illusive Store is one of your main ways to access the Astrite rewards, XP materials, and crafting items the mode offers.

How many in-activity rewards you get depends on the difficulty you select. For difficulties one through three, your reward percentage will be flat, but once you unlock the level 90 difficulty, you can add modifiers to the activity.

Helpful modifiers called Reverie Memes make Depths of Illusive Realm easier but reduce the rewards you receive. These include making it easier to improve your in-combat rating (Symphony Rank), providing bonuses and buffs at high Symphony Ranks, and so on.

Harmful modifiers called Nightmare Memes make Depths of Illusive Realm more difficult but increase your rewards. The debuffs applied can be flat reductions to your defense or HP or can increase the damage enemies can do, and so on.

Symphony Rank functions like combat ratings in the Devil May Cry, with consistently good performance increasing your rank up to SS and taking damage or not attacking for extended periods, causing the rank to decay as low as D-rank.

How many modifiers you add depends on your goal for the run. If all you care about is completing it as quickly and easily as possible, load up on Reverie Memes and have a good time. If you want a real challenge and rewards commensurate with that struggle, you can make Depths of Illusive Realm a true meat grinder.

Whichever method you choose, Depths of Illusive Realm is a fantastic way to test your skills.