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The Dissonance Ladder

Once you've opened the worlds you can reach, the climb continues within a world through Dissonance — the difficulty dial. This page is the strategy; for the mechanics of the dial itself, see Run Mode → the Dissonance dial.

This is the dial, not the depth

The dial is how hard you lean into the dissonance of the world you're standing in. How deep that world's dissonance runs in the first place is set by where it sits on the world ladder — that's Deepening Dissonance, and it's answered by ascending rather than by gear. Get in tune with the world first, then push the dial.

The dial in one breath​

You set a single Dissonance number, saved once and applied to every run. Each level steps enemies up, and the step steepens by band: +3% per level through D20, +5% across D21–40, +6% across D41–75, +8% across D76–100 (all compounding). Through D20 that's simply ×1.03ⁿ; every band above climbs faster — crossing into D21 (Hard) is a deliberate difficulty break. The number sits in a named band: 1–20 Normal · 21–40 Hard · 41–75 Nightmare · 76+ Cacophony. Set it, and the band follows.

Cacophony (76+) is the deepest push — past the Harmonize ceiling, where the run stops handing out higher-tier gear and starts paying the push itself: more materials, more Frequency, and prestige. It's the "how far can your team go" band, not a new rarity of drop.

Why push — the payoff climbs with you​

Higher Dissonance isn't just harder; it pays more, which is the whole reason to climb:

  • Higher-rarity loot. A clear rolls its drops at the band it's in — D21+ pulls from the Hard loot tables, D41+ from Nightmare — so rarities that a plain clear never rolls start showing up.
  • More drops. You earn roughly one extra loot roll per 20 levels of Dissonance.
  • Richer chests — and Frequency you keep. A Dissonance chest remembers the level it was earned at: the gear inside comes out with +that many points of Frequency on top of its normal roll. A Mythical from a D30 chest carries roughly +30 Frequency — a lot of extra room for Notes, which is exactly what turns a good piece into a great one.

The Concord — every world's weekly Dissonance ladder​

Pushing Dissonance doesn't just pay you in loot — it also ranks you on the Concord, a weekly community Dissonance ladder that every open world now has its own of. (It started as the Sonentius endgame board and has since opened across the worlds; the tutorial Resonant Plains is the one world with no Concord.)

  • Every node you clear feeds two meters at once — your personal weekly score for that world (which ranks you against everyone playing it) and the world's community Concord meter. A clear scores on the Daily Trials efficiency math, amplified by the Dissonance you dared — the harder the run, the higher the score. A wipe scores nothing.
  • Chase the active Dissonant node. Each day a set of that world's nodes glow Dissonant, and one is "active" at a time (rotating every few hours) — clearing the active one pays bonus score. Non-active Dissonant nodes instead pay a higher Dissonant Core drop rate.
  • It ranks you against your own pond. Because each world scores separately, a lower-power player tops their world's board instead of being buried under out-of-world veterans — so the Concord is worth chasing at every stage, not just the endgame.
  • Find it on the Concord standings button by the map's Dissonant banner (a world switcher lets you check any open world's board). Weekly ranks pay out Crests down the top 50 and a World Cache to the podium.

The Sonentius Aftermath page covers the Concord in full — the daily scoring cap, the community milestones, and the endgame it feeds — and it all applies the same in every world's board.

How high should I run?​

  • You climb it by clearing it. You can push up to five levels past your best clear in each world — beat D10 in a world and you can attempt up to D15 there; clear D15 and D20 opens. Each world is proven on its own.
  • A Repeat run only re-plays a level you've already beaten by hand — you can't Repeat your way up the ladder.
  • The right number is the highest you can reliably clear. Push until a level starts costing you runs, then settle one below it and farm — the loot at your ceiling is the best you can earn.

How far the ladder goes — Nightmare is farmable now​

Dissonance used to compound at a flat +8% per level, which lapped even the best gear so fast that a fully-kitted team walled out right around Dissonance 41 — the first Nightmare tier. That was too steep: Nightmare was meant to be the reward you farm, not a cliff the best gear couldn't climb. The entry curve was re-anchored, and the step now steepens by band — +3% through D20, +5% across D21–40, +6% across D41–75, +8% across D76–100 — so a gentle Normal on-ramp gives way to a steeper Hard climb, and the ladder lines up with your gear the way it should:

  • A properly-geared team farms Nightmare. Bring the deepest world's Mythical gear with Notes loaded and D41+ is a place you live, not a wall — you'll push comfortably past the first Nightmare tier and keep climbing.
  • The deepest Nightmare is a Harmonize check. Reaching the far end of the ladder — think around Dissonance 75, the top of today's climb — expects gear that's not just Mythical but fully Harmonized and Note-loaded. A maxed-Mythic-but-not-yet-Harmonized team sits above D41 and below that ceiling — exactly the gap Harmonizing is there to close.
  • Your team is the real limit. There's no hard cap on the dial short of 100; where you wall is set by your gear band, your Notes, and your Ascension — so the climb always has somewhere to go as you invest.

Harmonize — the player-power axis​

The Dissonance ladder only works if player power scales to meet it, and the axis it scales along is Frequency → Notes → Harmonize:

Harmonize is live for everyone

Harmonize is open to all players — find it on the Harmonize tab of any gear piece's inspect screen. The Essence ladder runs 50 → 6,000 per level, 16,500 for one piece to H10; full table on the Harmonize page.

Spend Essence to raise a gear piece's Frequency capacity — +10 Frequency per Harmony level (shown as H1…H10 beside the piece, up to +100 at H10). More Frequency is room for more Notes, and the Notes you etch into that room are the power that carries you into deep Nightmare. It's raise-only, so no earned progress is ever lost — and the deeper you climb Dissonance, the more Essence you earn to fund it, so clearing higher funds Harmonizing, which holds more Notes, which lets you clear higher. That loop — harder content → more loot → more power → harder content — is the whole point of the ladder, and Harmonize is the rung that keeps it turning past Mythical gear. It deliberately reuses the Frequency/Notes system you already know — one number to grow, one choice (what to etch) — rather than adding a new stat.

See also​

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