History — The Blight Tide
The Blight Tide is the realm's corruption pressure gauge — a single realm-wide reading that rises as the deep places are left alone and falls as players push back against them. Nearly every corruption system in the game keys off it.
Reading the Tide
The Tide sits in one of five bands, and the band decides how far the corruption reaches into the daylight world:
| Band | What it means |
|---|---|
| Held | Below 40%. The lowest band — the deep is contained and the daylight world is untouched. |
| Rising | 40–60%. The pressure builds; nothing has broken through yet. |
| Bleed | From 60%. A small share of ordinary spawns rise Blight-touched. |
| Siege | From 80%. The corruption presses harder — more of the realm turns, and each kill is worth more. |
| Fall | From 95%. The high-water mark. The greatest share of spawns turn, and bounties peak. |
What raises it
The Tide climbs on its own over time — about 0.3% an hour, around 7% a day, and faster the more defenders are active. It is the realm's default state to worsen: left entirely alone, it will always drift upward. Seasons run ninety days, each starting at 35%.
What pushes it back
- Felling Blight-touched foes in the overworld — see The Bleed.
- Cleansing corruption nodes in The Underworld.
- Guild Beacons — each one a guild holds adds +10% to its members’ cleanse push — and a guild War Effort stockpile of 100+ Supply Points, which makes the guild Warded and its members cleanse 25% harder. Skyhold Watchposts only report the reading. See Guild Levels, Ranks & War.
Why it matters
The Tide is the connective tissue of the corruption war: it decides how much of the overworld turns Blight-touched, how richly those kills pay, and how hard the deep pushes back. It is shared by the whole realm — no one player moves it far, and no one player can ignore it.