Theatre of Blood is a damage raid rather than a points raid. Your reward is driven by the damage you personally deal across the whole run, and every death cuts into it.

Get there with ::tob.

Room order

The Maiden of Sanguinesti
Pestilent Bloat
Nylocas Vasilias
Sotetseg
Xarpus
Verzik Vitur
Verzik's Treasure Room

Rooms are done in this fixed order. There is no skipping and no branching.

Death costs you 20% of your damage

This is the single most important rule in the raid, and it is not obvious in game.

Every time you die, your accumulated damage for the raid is multiplied by 0.8. It is not a flat deduction and it compounds:

Deaths	Damage credit remaining
0	100%
1	80%
2	64%
3	51%
4	41%

Three deaths costs you roughly half your reward. Surviving is worth more than any damage increase you could bring, so play the mechanics conservatively rather than greedily.

What happens when you die

You are teleported to a spectator spot and watch the rest of the room. You cannot fight, heal teammates or contribute in any way until the room ends. Your team continues without you.

If the whole team dies, the raid ends and everyone is teleported back to the lobby.

Deaths in the treasure room are handled differently and do not carry the same penalty, so the raid is effectively over once Verzik is down.

All rooms are multi-combat

Every room in the Theatre is multi-combat. That means area attacks hit multiple targets and your positioning affects your teammates, not just you. It also means you cannot rely on single-target mechanics to protect you.

Room notes

The Maiden of Sanguinesti

Ranged. Blood spawns appear as her health drops and must be cut off before they reach her and heal her. The blood pools they leave behind damage anyone standing in them.

Pestilent Bloat

Melee, but only while he is down. Bloat walks the room and periodically stops. Attack while he is stopped, move away and break line of sight while he is walking. The falling meat deals heavy damage if you stand under it.

Nylocas Vasilias

All three styles. Nylocas come in three colours and each must be killed with the matching style. Wrong style deals almost nothing. This is the room that punishes not bringing switches, and the reason ToB is not a one-style raid.

Sotetseg

Ranged and magic. He alternates between the two, and the big ball attack splits its damage across everyone it hits, so the team should group up for it rather than scatter. The maze phase sends one player to trace a path the rest must follow.

Xarpus

Melee or ranged. In the first phase he heals from the exhumed pools, so cover them. In the second phase he watches the room and counterattacks whoever attacks him while he is facing them, so attack only when he is looking away.

Verzik Vitur

All three styles across her phases. She starts behind a shield, moves to a ranged and magic phase with nylocas support, and finishes with the most dangerous phase of the raid. This is where most deaths happen, and where a death costs the most because your damage credit is at its highest.

What to bring

All three combat styles. Nylocas Vasilias makes this mandatory, not optional.
Plenty of food and brews. The damage is constant and multi-combat means you cannot avoid all of it.
Gear you can afford to use. The raid is long and the reward is damage-based, so a setup you can actually push damage with beats a cautious one.

Improving your reward

Do not die. Nothing else comes close. One death undoes more than any gear upgrade adds.
Deal damage consistently in every room, not just the ones you find easy. Credit accumulates across the whole raid.
Bring the right switches. Killing nylocas with the wrong style wastes the entire room for you.

Related

The six Theatre pets all give a small smite bonus. Lil' Zik, Lil' Maiden, Lil' Bloat, Lil' Nylo, Lil' Sot and Lil' Xarp are all on the table. See the Pets guide.

The Scythe of vitur feeds two upgrades: Osmumten's scythe at 80%, and the Scythe of infernal at a guaranteed 100%. See the Upgrade Recipes guide.