Common/Rares are STILL useless...

[Malnux the Restless]

Ill start off by saying the 1.0 release has been absolutely amazing, that said there are a variety of problems amplified from the early release version, one of these problems being common/rare skulls.

While common and rare skulls can be upgraded the problem is that when in going through the effort of upgrading these skulls you are losing out on massive amounts of gold, at first I thoughts to myself this wasn't as big of a deal because when you go through skull levels you can possibly get better skulls alongside getting bones to upgrade your current skulls. Unfortunately, once you do a couple runs where you get lucky and get good high tier skulls at the beginning you will notice the massive difference in gold gained.

Other than gold there is one other problem, and this problem is that despite upgrades common and rare skulls are still buy and large weaker than their rarer counterparts, while you can certainly beat the game with any skull (I particularly have fun using minotaur)it is much, MUCH, easier with rarer skulls, to the point where the difficulty takes a huge plunge downwards. In essence this means that if you aren't looking for a particular challenge if the option arises to obtain a unique/legendary skull it is almost always better to go for it (exceptions being a magic skull shows up when you are building physical items).

To end off... I like common and rare skulls, I love the transformations for the skeleton soldiers going from common beaten soldiers to legendary fallen warriors and Im making this post in the hopes that something can be done to make the less rare able to beat the game without the massive obstacles of undertaking the use of those skulls.

[ZexxCrine]

....i disagree

[empleoyeet]

In the sense of power ceiling of the different skulls, ofcourse they will be significant difference in power in rare to unique rarity skull hence the difference in their rarity. In the sense of rng in acquiring them, i don't know the exact numbers but i haven't been in a spot where i blamed the rng for not giving me a good skull i find myself more blaming myself for being bad.

Maybe we're just neglect what cards are already presented to us. Ofcourse if you're not satisfied to viable skulls and went looking for well-tuned(near op) skulls, ofcourse you'll reap what you sow and get more skulls(or bones) and get less gold. and ofcourse i do agree some of the skulls are just not playable if you're looking to beat the first hero with significant margin but not all of the are not viable some of them are free bones or challenges for the freaks out there.

I recommend either get nine(9) items immediately or high-roll a decent skull. i find this gameplay style consistent, maybe i just have god-like rng but we have our difference circumstances at that point.

[SargoXIII]

my favorite is skeleton-pike.
i beaten so much times with this common skull
This game becomes easier if you can complete the combination of items that match the skull.

[Malnux the Restless]

Originally posted by Empleoyee:

In the sense of power ceiling of the different skulls, ofcourse they will be significant difference in power in rare to unique rarity skull hence the difference in their rarity. In the sense of rng in acquiring them, i don't know the exact numbers but i haven't been in a spot where i blamed the rng for not giving me a good skull i find myself more blaming myself for being bad.

Maybe we're just neglect what cards are already presented to us. Ofcourse if you're not satisfied to viable skulls and went looking for well-tuned(near op) skulls, ofcourse you'll reap what you sow and get more skulls(or bones) and get less gold. and ofcourse i do agree some of the skulls are just not playable if you're looking to beat the first hero with significant margin but not all of the are not viable some of them are free bones or challenges for the freaks out there.

I recommend either get nine(9) items immediately or high-roll a decent skull. i find this gameplay style consistent, maybe i just have god-like rng but we have our difference circumstances at that point.

I agree, even with good skulls/item combos it is still very possible to lose from not being skilled enough, that said even the devs themselves have mentioned in a patch note that a majority of physical skulls feel weaker than the rest. As a side note yes getting 9 items can be good but getting 9 items that combo with each other and play into the skull that your using can be quite difficult, by far i have found that the most consistent way to win the game unreliant on skulls is to build HP + Damage Resistance, than get the priests staff, when using this build i found myself easily tanking the first hero even in the second phase.

[Magicfulness]

I've seen some discussion around here that the most powerful legendary skulls are actually common, for example I remember seeing a user really like shield and wolf skull.

In my playstyle i almost always choose the skull doors and I usually can buy at least one item every time I get to the shop. My opinion is actually that you should always choose skull doors to collect bones because you NEED to upgrade your skulls to legendary by stage four

[Malnux the Restless]

Originally posted by Magicfulness:

I've seen some discussion around here that the most powerful legendary skulls are actually common, for example I remember seeing a user really like shield and wolf skull.

In my playstyle i almost always choose the skull doors and I usually can buy at least one item every time I get to the shop. My opinion is actually that you should always choose skull doors to collect bones because you NEED to upgrade your skulls to legendary by stage four

This Is the playstyle most people seem to inhibit (myself included most of the time), its just that ive noticed that you can have easily 8-9k gold per shop in stage 3-4 if you avoid gunning for skull doors. With this amount of money you can easily reroll to get the items you desire for a near perfect combo for your desired build the trade off being you need to pray your rng is good to get a unique/legendary on stage 1-2 so you can go for just items & gold.

[FrostSaber]

Honestly I think one of the things that needs to be added is just more ways to get bone chips, like getting a few for beating a boss or making them an occasional drop in small amounts from enemies, I just had a run where I only had two skull doors before I got to the Ent.

Trying to level up one skull is already enough of a challenge but working on two at the same time is a nightmare on some runs.

[d.a.elliott]

Originally posted by Malnux the Restless:

This Is the playstyle most people seem to inhibit (myself included most of the time), its just that ive noticed that you can have easily 8-9k gold per shop in stage 3-4 if you avoid gunning for skull doors. With this amount of money you can easily reroll to get the items you desire for a near perfect combo for your desired build the trade off being you need to pray your rng is good to get a unique/legendary on stage 1-2 so you can go for just items & gold.

THANK YOU!

I hadn't thought about sacrificing upgrades for money to fish for the items I want until I read your post. I've been obsessed with trying to get enough Fairy Tales for King Oberon, and I was able to finally summon him this evening.

Best part?

I walk into the chimera fight, and he immediately casts his dark flare spell. I'm not joking or exaggerating. Chimera died within 4 sec, and I got a perfect for the fight.

[BoppyDoppy]

Honestly its not bad because in lvl 1-2 you can get 2 skulls you really like, and in lvl 3-4 you get items for a perfect build, thats what i usually do

[Get Singed]

The low rarity skulls are not bad or weak by any means, all you have to do is upgrade them.

[F A T B $ $ $ R T D]

bruh rare skulls at legendary are a LOT OP than uniques and legendaries, ie alchemist, ice, clown; and i would argue minotaur

[Magico Shion]

As someone that cleared the game not only now in early access but also in the full version with just the base skull "skul" I can safely say, no, as long you know what you are doing you can easily make any skull work.

Also, yes, low rarity skulls (there are exceptions like Gene, werwolf and some others that are good throughout the entire game even by base so without any upgrades) are not always the best, prette underwelming in fact, however, it is a straight up fact that each of the skulls can EASILY make it to the chimera without any upgrades.

Also, every legendary skull did not hange one bit, yet it still is a default game win if you see the lich, the reaper, and in general most of the legendary skulls.

Even the Champion who was considered the by far weakest legendary in early access is more than capable of beating the game by himself because he melts through bosses with his time freeze ability.


Now to the "gold problem" you mentioned.

If you actually dare to only go for skull rooms and no treasure and gold rooms then that's your own ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fault for loosing. Let me explain why that is and why it is infact very easy to upgrade any skull to legendary.

The higher you are, the more rare skulls appear in skull doors, so effectively you can farm skulls from floor 1 to 3 (chimera) and end up bearly with enough to upgrade to legendary (unless RNG blessed you with a legendary to pick apart as t literally gives you half of the required bones), but then you die because you bearly focused on Items and gold.

The first thing you should do is going for your build, if you already found your Skull you want to upgrade, do it up to the 30 bone upgrade, but then don't do more than that for the time being.

In the later floors skull farming becomes much more effective, of course, the same goes for treasure hunting, but if you don't have your build together after the chimera and you aren't the best skul player you are likely to die right then and there anyway.

If you start skull farming a bit in the middle and then in floor 3 and 4, you easily have the legendary upgrade either after chimera, or, the next skull upgrade checkpoint after that.

There really is not need to dissregard your gold and items just to get a legendary skull, since the later floors give better skulls you basically have the legendary skull at the same time when farming later on, rather than early on. So there just isn't any point in actively hurting yourself, and if you do that's on you.



Now to the point of rarer skulls always being better than the common skulls.

Wrong, very, very, very wrong, The best skulls like ninja and archmage that were already considered one of the strongest, even better than some legendary skulls in early access? OF COURSE they are stronger, but do you really think the flaming dude with a sword in his head (sorry forgot the name cause I bearly use it), or clown are actually as good as hell rider? As good as Gene? As good as Wolf? HELL, quite a few rarer skulls aren't even considered better than those skulls without upgrades.

But, for those that are better, what did you expect? Did you expect the game to suddenly turn on easy for as long you upgrade the first garbage you find? Also, it would be very frustrating if legendary and unique skulls suddenly become wothless because the first boss common garbage you pick up is gonna be better than the legendary skull either way.

Think about that for a second, and then again about the fact that the game is literally possible to beat with the base skull and nothing else.

[MadCrabPrime]

shield is amazing

[Malnux the Restless]

Originally posted by Magico Shion:

As someone that cleared the game not only now in early access but also in the full version with just the base skull "skul" I can safely say, no, as long you know what you are doing you can easily make any skull work.

Also, yes, low rarity skulls (there are exceptions like Gene, werwolf and some others that are good throughout the entire game even by base so without any upgrades) are not always the best, prette underwelming in fact, however, it is a straight up fact that each of the skulls can EASILY make it to the chimera without any upgrades.

Also, every legendary skull did not hange one bit, yet it still is a default game win if you see the lich, the reaper, and in general most of the legendary skulls.

Even the Champion who was considered the by far weakest legendary in early access is more than capable of beating the game by himself because he melts through bosses with his time freeze ability.


Now to the "gold problem" you mentioned.

If you actually dare to only go for skull rooms and no treasure and gold rooms then that's your own ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fault for loosing. Let me explain why that is and why it is infact very easy to upgrade any skull to legendary.

The higher you are, the more rare skulls appear in skull doors, so effectively you can farm skulls from floor 1 to 3 (chimera) and end up bearly with enough to upgrade to legendary (unless RNG blessed you with a legendary to pick apart as t literally gives you half of the required bones), but then you die because you bearly focused on Items and gold.

The first thing you should do is going for your build, if you already found your Skull you want to upgrade, do it up to the 30 bone upgrade, but then don't do more than that for the time being.

In the later floors skull farming becomes much more effective, of course, the same goes for treasure hunting, but if you don't have your build together after the chimera and you aren't the best skul player you are likely to die right then and there anyway.

If you start skull farming a bit in the middle and then in floor 3 and 4, you easily have the legendary upgrade either after chimera, or, the next skull upgrade checkpoint after that.

There really is not need to dissregard your gold and items just to get a legendary skull, since the later floors give better skulls you basically have the legendary skull at the same time when farming later on, rather than early on. So there just isn't any point in actively hurting yourself, and if you do that's on you.



Now to the point of rarer skulls always being better than the common skulls.

Wrong, very, very, very wrong, The best skulls like ninja and archmage that were already considered one of the strongest, even better than some legendary skulls in early access? OF COURSE they are stronger, but do you really think the flaming dude with a sword in his head (sorry forgot the name cause I bearly use it), or clown are actually as good as hell rider? As good as Gene? As good as Wolf? HELL, quite a few rarer skulls aren't even considered better than those skulls without upgrades.

But, for those that are better, what did you expect? Did you expect the game to suddenly turn on easy for as long you upgrade the first garbage you find? Also, it would be very frustrating if legendary and unique skulls suddenly become wothless because the first boss common garbage you pick up is gonna be better than the legendary skull either way.

Think about that for a second, and then again about the fact that the game is literally possible to beat with the base skull and nothing else.

Yes you "can" beat the game with any skul but I was making a point of how easy it or difficult it can be, also towards your point of upgrading skulls that is theory heavily reliant on rng. In a multitude of runs i have gone the entire run without seeing a single legendary, and at best maybe 1 unique, because of this even if I stick with the same 2 skulls and gun for skull doors the majority of my run, it is highly plausible that I am unable to fully upgrade both skulls and therefore be at a major disadvantage by the 4th and final boss.

Towards the aforementioned gold problem this is also heavily reliant on how lucky you are, but yes generally speaking most people are wise enough to know that if they need better items they should skip a couple skull doors when i say gunning for skull doors I don't mean "skull door only challenge" i mean its a main priority. The gold problem is a problem because of rng, because of the way the game dishes out items it is extremely likely that even by the 4th floor you could have a large variety of items that are unoptimal for your build and unlikely to succeed in killing the final boss. This problem is nigh nullified if you are able to mass gold by avoiding a majority of skull doors because you can put all your time and resources into more items vastly increasing the likelyhood that you end up with the build you desire leading to a higher chance of victory. You point out that it is likely to have legendary upgraded skulls by stage 4, and on average I would agree however because of rng, this is not always the case and because of rng both for how much bones you can get, and items you can get, logistically speaking you have a higher chance of success if you stick with a skull that requires less farming in general.

Finally, towards the power difference between skulls first I will discuss the aspects that make a skull strong which is divided into 3 categories Sustain/Burst/Basic attack. These categories are irrelevant of the actual categories for skulls, what i mean for this is taking power skulls into consideration, a good portion of power skulls would be sustain, but skulls such as predator would be burst (since they are heavily reliant on large amounts of damage), furthermore the berzerker would be more along the lines of a basic attacker once upgraded (his demon form gives him like 200% more attack speed i believe).

Out of these three categories good players can make any of these categories work but purely out of how they function when used, sustain is the easiest to use, burst is the second easiest, and basic attackers are the hardest. Reason for this is quite simple as basic attackers require the most knowledge of your enemies and when to get in close to attack while burst just clears the map, and sustain sits there and tanks everything.

The reason I bring up all of this is that a majority of common and rare skulls, are basic attackers or burst with burst that is incomparable to their rarer counterparts(not necessarily damage but more along the lines of easy to use abillities or generally huge aoe's). This is the reason I say that common and rares are generally speaking weaker than unqiues and legendarys, of course exceptions to every rules exist so there are a couple of common and rares that disregard what i have mentioned, but again this depends on your luck and rng to get these exceptions to the rule.

You make some fair points, and I am not disregarding your points but I am explaining my logistical point of view, also im assuming you were talking about the living armor skul which yes has always sucked but again exceptions and the clown/hell rider are the same rarity.

[Magico Shion]

yeah, I guess that's fair, I personally just never had the problem of bad rng in later floors and being able to easily upgrade skulls to legendary, and the fact that I can make each of them work with ease, even without any upgrades. There is a good amount of, I don't really wanna call it skill, more like, experience you can gain through playing the game, and if you do, each and every skull becomes viable to beat the game with and there are a number of skulls that are better even tho they have lower rarity, but not all, and I still believe this is the right aproach to do because yes, rng is a part of this game, and not every skull is balanced the same way, and that is a good a thing, not every run should feel underwehlming, but also not every run should feel like you are destroying everything.

And if skulls gonna be all strong as f*ck when fully upgrading them, they in the end wouldn't make for much of a difference in between runs, one fun part about the game is that you can make a certain build like in a RPG, if every skull is as strong as reaper or lich there is literally 0 point in any items whatssoever, just spam your strong ability and end fly through the floors in minues.

Now don't get me wrong tho, I love the reaper, in fact, the archmage (I believe it is named warlock now?) and reaper are my most favorite skulls in the game and they require bearly to no items to shred the opponents throughout the entire game.

And that's fun, I love both of those skulls, however, if they would be common skulls, or, all skulls would be as good as them, it would very fast become repetitive. Yes, some skulls really could do with a buff as they are practically useless or just not fun to play with, but, I believe some inbalance between the skulls, especially those that you easily obtain and those you only see every other run or so, is healthy for the game.