Every Torchlight Infinite Season includes new mechanics that change how you play the game. Season 4 / SS2 - The City of Aeterna added the Ruins, City, and Pslams of Aeterna mechanics to the game, as well as the Lone King of Aeterna pinnacle boss encounter. This Season also introduced the Soul Candle system, increasing player power and Skill customization.
To learn all about Soul Candles and what they can do for you, check out our guide!
Monument of Aeterna Encounter
Players first encounter the City of Aeterna mechanic within the Netherrealm via Trait Cards and Confusion Cards. These cards cause Aeterna Monsters to appear in your beacons, slay them to recieve Aeterna Reverberation - Fleeting and Aeterna Reverberation - Eternal. These tradeable items are your key to the Ruins of Aeterna.
The Ruins of Aeterna
- Enter the Ruins of Aeterna by talking to Kandel, who appears in Ember's Rest after completing the campaign.
- Use Aeterna Reverberation - Fleeting to enter the Ruins with a monster level of 83.
- Use Aeterna Reverberation - Eternal to enter the Ruins with a monster level of 85.
- The Ruins are filled with monsters, challenges, and end with a Boss battle.
- Players are tasked with completing all challenges and slaying the Boss before the timer expires.
- Slay monsters to extend the timer.
- Clearing the Ruins yields a Mark of Aeterna, used when constructing the City of Aeterna.
- Failing to clear the Ruins of Aeterna yields an imperfect Mark, stunting the City's construction. You can retry in your next Ruins if this happens.
There are 5 Different Challenges
The Ruins of Aeterna require players to interact with large Candles to initiate a Challenge, and then clear that challenge.
- Waves of Monsters spawn while trapping you in a Blue arena, while Blue DoT puddles form at the arena's outskirts and flow inwards.
- Defeat all waves of Monsters to complete the Challenge and free yourself.
- Waves of Monsters spawn while trapping you in a Red arena, the Candle emits a powerful Red laser that rotates around the Arena.
- Defeat all waves of Monsters to complete the Challenge and free yourself.
- A Boss spawns while trapping you in a Purple arena.
- Defeat the Boss to complete the Challenge and free yourself.
- A White circle appears on ground nearby, standing in it for long enough completes the Challenge.
- Monsters spawn nearby while you do this.
- While extremely rare, a cluster of highly rewarding Chests spawn nearby.
- These chests have a small chance to duplicate themselves when opened.
- There is no Challenge.
Assembling the City of Aeterna
The City of Aeterna is assembled on the Aeterna Map, a 2x2 grid made up of groups of 3x3 Tiles (Psalms of Aeterna Nodes allow you to expand the Map, up to a 3x3 grid). Marks of Aeterna, earned from the Ruins of Aeterna, are randomized clusters of Tiles that can be placed to fill in the Map - think board game pieces.
The City Map is generated with numerous Reward Tiles and a singular Boss Tile. The goal when assembling the City of Aeterna is to connect the Boss Tile and as many Reward Tiles as possible to your starting point.
- Place Marks of Aeterna onto Reward and Boss Tiles and then connect them to your starting point.
- Each 3x3 Tile group supports 1 Mark.
- By default, Marks are generated with 6 tiles.
- Players can choose to generate them with 4 via the Fertile Soil Psalms of Aeterna Node, Reward Tiles covered by this Mark have doubled rewards.
- After all Marks of Aeterna have been placed, you have the ability to place 1 (up to 3 with Psalms) singular Tiles onto the Map to help connect other Tiles to the starting point.
For every 5 connected Reward Tiles, up to 20, the Boss residing within the City grows in strength and yields increased rewards when slain.
- Doubled Reward Tiles count as 2.
Conquer the City of Aeterna
You've reassembled the City of Aeterna, now it's time to reap the rewards you've sown, plunder the City and earn tons of loot!
The Reassembled City of Aeterna
- The Reassembled City of Aeterna is filled with monsters, slay them to earn Keys and Tears of Aeterna.
- Unlock Tears of Aeterna with the Burning Tears Psalms of Aeterna Node.
- Tears are used in Soul Candle Fusion.
- Tears are removed when leaving the City without the Unsolidified Tears Psalms of Aeterna Node.
- Reward Tiles accessed during City construction manifest as Candlelights within the City, open them with Keys to receive awesome loot!
- Open all Candlelights within the City before challenging the Boss.
- After opening the last altar, a portal opens up that takes you to the Boss.
- Slay the Boss to earn Soul Candles and Pages of Aeterna.
- Use your Pages to unlock nodes within the Psalms of Aeterna.
- The cycle begins anew...
Candlelights come in varying rarities, improving the quality and quantity of items they drop.
- Common
- Rare
- Precious
- Ultimate
The Infinite City of Aeterna
The Infinite City of Aeterna is a near endlessly scaling mode, featuring improved rewards, a leaderboard, and extreme difficulty.
- Unlock the Infinite City by beating a Reassembled City who's monster level is at least level 84.
- A Reassembled City's monster level is the average of the monster levels from the Ruins of Aeterna instances used to construct the City.
- You need to use more or equal amounts of Aeterna Reverberation - Eternal than Aeterna Reverberation - Fleeting to do this.
- Afterwards, assembling a City of Aeterna who's monster level is at least level 84 allows you to select your desired Aeterna Tier (starting at 1). Slaying the City's Boss unlocks new tiers, up to 5 tiers ahead from your selection.
- Each subsequent Aeterna Tier modifies the City, granting monsters increased attributes while granting players increased loot.
- At base, Aeterna Tier is capped at 20. The Aeterna's Renewal and multiple Expansion Psalms of Aeterna Nodes can massively increase this cap.
- Note: While monsters can scale endlessly, loot stops scaling after a certain Aeterna Tier.
- Speak to Kandel in town to see the Aeterna Hall, a leaderboard showcasing players with your Hero Trait who've reached the highest Aeterna Tiers.
Psalms of Aeterna
Psalms of Aeterna is a large talent tree focused on content from The City of Aeterna.
- Psalms of Aeterna Nodes are allocated with the untradeable Pages of Aeterna currency.
- At base, Pages of Aeterna only drop within reassembled Cities of Aeterna.
- Allocating the invaluable Queen's Portrait Psalm of Aeterna Node causes bosses within either the Ruins or the City to drop a Page when slain, massively improving Page of Aeterna acquisition.
- Psalms of Aeterna Nodes offer numerous benefits while inside the Ruins or a reassembled City:
- Increases to Drop Quantity and Rarity
- Increasing player movement speed
- Reducing monster life and damage
- Granting a chance to spawn extra Bosses
- Improving the quality of Reward Tiles
- Increasing the size of the Aeterna Map
- Improving Soul Candle acquisition
- Players who are not interested in the City of Aeterna mechanic and would prefer to purchase Soul Candles from the Trade House should focus the bottom branch of the Psalms of Aeterna to unlock their second Soul Candle slot.
The Lone King of Aeterna
The Lone King of Aeterna is the City of Aeterna mechanic's pinnacle boss, to challenge him, you must collect Queen's Wick from Bosses within the City after allocating the Passage of Time Psalms of Aeterna Node, then offer them to the Great Void.
This boss has 3 variants of increasing difficulty and rewards, the latter of which being among the most difficult encounters in the game. All variants can drop a variety of exclusive Legendary Gear, and Soul Candles.
- Use Queen's Wick - Imprisoned to challenge the first variant.
- Use Queen's Wick - Imprisoned and Queen's Wick - Pursuit to challenge the second variant.
- Use Queen's Wick - Imprisoned, Queen's Wick - Pursuit, and Queen's Wick - Revenge to challenge the third and most dangerous variant.
Summary
Here are the most important things you need to know from this guide about the City of Aeterna Seasonal mechanic.
- The City of Aeterna revolves around the Ruins, City, and Psalms of Aeterna mechanics, the Lone King of Aeterna pinnacle boss, and the Soul Candle system.
- Acquire Aeterna Reverberation - Fleeting and Aeterna Reverberation - Eternal from Aeterna Monsters spawned from Trait and Confusion cards in the Netherrealm. Use them to enter the Ruins of Aeterna.
- Earn Marks of Aeterna from the Ruins, place those onto the Aeterna Map to begin assembling the City.
- Enter the assembled City of Aeterna, slay monsters, score epic loot, and slay the boss at its end.
- Obtain Pages of Aeterna from the City to allocate nodes from the Psalms of Aeterna, the City's progression system.
- Challenge the Infinite City of Aeterna to experience near endless scaling for monsters and loot!
- Challenge the tyrannical Lone king of Aeterna deep within the City for some ghastly rewards.
Credits
Written by Xtra37
Reviewed by Tenkiei