The wave stress rule
The Deep throws enemies at a party in waves, and after every wave each active hero picks up stress. The 2.1.8 code builds that number from three parts:
- 6 for surviving the wave at all;
- +6 if the hero ended the wave below 40% of their health;
- +5 if anyone in the party went down during that wave.
A few things scale the total. A Hopeful hero anywhere in the active party cuts it to 90% for everyone, and a leader with the “A Steady Word” milestone gift cuts it to 75%. Deep-Seasoned halves it, for that hero only, and only on Deep dungeons. On an ordinary delve the trait does nothing at all.
| Wave outcome for the hero | Normal stress | Deep-Seasoned |
|---|---|---|
| Healthy, nobody downed | 6 | 3 |
| Below 40% health | 12 | 6 |
| Below 40% and a party-mate went down | 17 | 9 |
Stress is capped at 100, and 100 is where a hero breaks. A broken hero keeps fighting in one of four states, chosen from their own attributes: reckless (more damage dealt, less threat drawn), fearful (less damage and less threat), hollow (less damage and less healing), or held, for heroes with very high hidden pressure, which changes nothing. Each of the first three moves the affected numbers by 12%.
What half the stress buys
Read the table as a count of waves. A healthy hero reaches the break point after about 17 clean waves; a Deep-Seasoned one needs about 34. In the bad runs, where a hero keeps finishing waves hurt and party-mates are dropping, the normal hero breaks in six such waves and the Deep-Seasoned hero in eleven or twelve.
The saving also follows the hero home. Stress does not reset after a delve, and over about 72 a hero stops counting as fit for selection (see hero state). A Deep-Seasoned hero comes back from the same run with roughly half the wave stress of the people beside them, which means less rest before the next contract and a lower chance of being flagged worn when the schedule is tight.
Where else the trait shows up
The code gives Deep-Seasoned a few smaller hooks outside the wave formula:
- Forks in the dungeon. When the party reaches a fork, the leader picks between the known path and a riskier side room. Deep-Seasoned adds a +1 lean toward the Sealed Door, the hazard room. It only matters when this hero is the one choosing the route.
- Quests and duty. Quest reports have their own story lines for this trait, and on pair duty the hero speaks with the “veteran” voice shared with Old Soldier, Weathered, Road-Hardened, Old-School and Well-Preserved. Both are flavour; neither changes an outcome.
The hero card lists the trait as linked to Composure and Resolve. The game is explicit that this link is descriptive: the attribute numbers themselves do not change.
Who should carry it
The trait is worth roughly what your Deep schedule is worth. For a guild that takes Deep contracts every season, it belongs on the heroes who spend the most waves hurt:
- Front-liners, who finish waves below 40% far more often than anyone else and so pay the doubled rate;
- Healers, because a healer who breaks takes the party’s recovery down with them;
- Blood-Drunk fighters, whose style keeps them at low health on purpose and would otherwise cost the full 12 per wave.
It also pairs well with Weathered, which halves the stress that floor conditions add between rooms, so the two cover different sources of the same meter.
Conflicts and how it is found
Deep-Seasoned can never sit on the same hero as Claustrophobic. If a hero somehow earns one, the other is removed.
- Rarity: rare, positive · draw weight 14 of 6,365 · about 1 recruit in 180
- Founding draft: only on the wildcard card.
- In the wiki’s archive: first present in the 2.1.8 build (absent from 2.0.7).
Paying for it
Check how often your league sends you into the Deep before paying anything extra. If the answer is rarely, treat the trait as blank and buy the hero for their attributes. If the answer is every season, a Deep-Seasoned tank or healer is one of the few traits that pays off on every single Deep run they make.