Something wrong with game scaling near endgame

[Neocronic]

I dont know its bug or just bad design, but speedy skulls starts like speed devils in first two stages and become completely trash skulls in last stages, because it looks like enemy hp scaling faster than i stack damage. I reach last boss only once with power skull, other runs when i take any speed skull a just stop killing enemies from stage 4 and further. Yes i still kill things anyway but it takes almost minute even for just elite monster. Last run i found Cleric boss in stage 4 and she just heal yourself faster than i deal damage to her. I fight with her 25 minutes of my real life and even not reach half of her bar. Then i just exit from game. Have legendary dead cells guy with all attack speed, crits and dps items. I deal something like 12-24 dps to her with all this items per attack and she literally outheal all my damage.

I think any balance and speed skulls just not balanced well for deal damage and also have no defence too, just speed, but why i even should be speedy if i do zero damage anyway?

Power skulls have a tons of damage, burst damage, defence, a lot of them, i just can facetank bosses easily. My favorite is Berserker, he have good attack speed and can kill everything in seconds. Also he have two handed sword with a tons of damage.

I think game should cap max health of enemies or balance it near your max dps this moment. Because it just unfair, when game drop you bad items and you just lose run not because you die, but because you cant kill enemies.

[koerli_89]

I completely agree. They become absolutely worthless at stage 4, even in stage 3 they stop doing decent damage. Same goes for mages. Both types of skulls dont even do enough damage on legendary stage.

[Runic Tunic]

This has been brought up quite a few times in the past, and though I do think the later half of the game can be quite brutal, I believe the general consensus from past discussions has been that a lot of it has to come down to your item build.

You definitely want speed items, but after two or three, you're gonna want mostly crit and damage after that. Maybe throw in a damage reduction or health item in there too.

If you focus on this set up, focus on dodging and not facetanking, and make sure you toss lower quality items for better ones, this won't be as common an issue with the priest .

Another thing to consider is Speed just doesn't match your playstyle. I've seen plenty of people have no issue with Speed, Magic, or Balance skulls, but struggle with Power.

[RubyNips]

Unfortunately certain skulls dont scale well by the later stages unles you are lucky with items, while skulls like death and lich can care its own with zero magical items.

[NanBreadLoaf]

Originally posted by RubyNips:

Unfortunately certain skulls dont scale well by the later stages unles you are lucky with items, while skulls like death and lich can care its own with zero magical items.

I've trashbinned a few runs with death and lich before. The bigger character just isn't something I can get used to, so I take a bit too much damage. Very good skulls, but I'm just bad with them.

And most of the runs I've finished have been balance skulls. I've finished with a speed skull before, but the playstyle (while very fun) gets me killed. And other than the gravedigger and berserker, I've never got much use out of power skulls.

[Leviathan]

Nope. Maybe if you just use stuff that increases physical/magical (depending on the skull) damage in a % it won't scale well to the endgame sections, but speed skulls don't do that well with that kind of stuff, because many of them are actually magical/physical mixed (Petty thief, rider, ninja, clown) and because base damage isn't very high. You still want to focus on one type of damage, but you also get better effects by using items which add an effect to attacks or dashes, or which reduce cooldown (It's not an exhaustive list). I love how legendary petty thief+Kirion Sword can blaze through area 4 because you dash so far and often and it adds damage to both dashes and attacks.

Pike skull is totally physical but it's also the perfect example, dash attacks with double dash... if you get a wind armor you may as well equip every dash effect item you find and only attack by dashing and skills. In fact Pike+Ninja was my first win, with mostly that build, using ninja when I really needed to dodge and Pike when I really needed to damage enemies.

Originally posted by Nan Bread:

I've trashbinned a few runs with death and lich before. The bigger character just isn't something I can get used to, so I take a bit too much damage. Very good skulls, but I'm just bad with them.

Still, it's a good combination. Reaper can deal with rooms without taking too much risk and archlich can do what death can't. Deal with bosses. Getting both in a run... well, that's an entire different thing.

It would be fun to have some kind of custom mode (Requirement to unlock, 20k shards or something like that, make it something you can only get after you've played a lot if you want).