I don't understand why hybrid skulls exist

[Ittrix]

To be more specific, I don't understand why some skulls mix physical and magical abilities.
Off the top of my head these skulls mix abilities or basic attacks:
Grave digger (magic abilities, physical attack)
Thief (magic abilities, physical attack)
Clown (physical attack, magic trait, split abilities)
Mummy (Mostly magic)
and Prisoner (physical attack, split abilities)

It's not like they're held back by being split, though people still build them one way or the other typically. Why not have them scale in one stat? Or if we want them to be hybrids, let them scale with either stat?

[whyeven]

I agree it's strange and I personally don't think it feels very good. I usually end up avoiding hybrid skulls because I don't want to rely on Brawl or Fulgent Dawn to pop up to help with the build, and you can't reliably use the skill swap to get same damage skills, like with Werewolf.
I was told in a different thread that Grave Digger is made hybrid to encourage you to use the summons more which seems dumb because then I build magical and what am I supposed to do in act 3 when I have no physical damage and I have to wait for my summons to recharge. in my experience GD is borderline unplayable with how slow it is and the apparent reliance on summoning (at least it's not recruit).
Prisoner is solid no matter what damage you get honestly. I usually go for straight physical since he's a speed skull and IIRC his normal does physical, the skills are just a bonus to add extra damage.
The other two kind of just depend on what build you're going for, thief has specific items that help him and him alone, similarly with clown doing projectiles and stuff, and mummy is mummy.

[Ittrix]

right? I'm not necessarily saying the skulls are *bad* because they're hybrid, just that they don't feel good.
It's whack to use a kit fluidly but have a portion of my damage gone to absolute potato because I have no items that scale with it.

I use grave digger more like bomber than anything else. I swap to him for the bare minimum of time to drop my skills and then I swap back. I can see his basic attack sucking because that's how you're supposed to use him... but in that case just make his basic attack magical and low scaling.

[whyeven]

Originally posted by Ittrix:

right? I'm not necessarily saying the skulls are *bad* because they're hybrid, just that they don't feel good.
It's whack to use a kit fluidly but have a portion of my damage gone to absolute potato because I have no items that scale with it.

I use grave digger more like bomber than anything else. I swap to him for the bare minimum of time to drop my skills and then I swap back. I can see his basic attack sucking because that's how you're supposed to use him... but in that case just make his basic attack magical and low scaling.

If GD doesn't have Kind Lear or Othello then I wont use it and I honestly think it's bad. GD hate thread, I straight up think it's one of the worst skulls in the game alongside Ent, Hunter, and Recruit. He's way too slow and clunky, I can't even use him like bomb because when I swap out his summons despawn which feels like a waste. If GD pops up and doesn't have the ranged summons then all I see is 5 fragments. I genuinely don't understand how people think he's overpowered or top tier, he can't even fight the first boss reliably if you don't have the right skills, legit trash.

[Ittrix]

wait his summons despawn when you swap out?? Is that new??

[whyeven]

Originally posted by Ittrix:

wait his summons despawn when you swap out?? Is that new??

Potentially, I'm on switch so I've been playing with version 1.5.2 I think, I just know that I've tried using him like bomb skull and as soon as I switched my summons faded away, could be a switch bug but I just don't trust him anymore with how unpleasant it is trying to play him

[Keno]

attack speed / cri can scale both damage types or just go pure def

[Ittrix]

Originally posted by Keno:

attack speed / cri can scale both damage types or just go pure def

Sure, but they generally aren't a substitute for the damage type in the first place. If I'm choosing to do attack speed / crit then I'm sure as fork not gonna want to split my remaining spots between magic / attack.

[Runic Tunic]

Pretty sure Prisoner is the best design of a hybrid skull. He has 5 different abilities, all with different "upgrades" or variants, and roughly half are separated between physical/magical damage types. And he can easily swap them out nearly every other floor once he's leveled up to Legendary.

So much flexibility in playstyle and ease of integrating him into any run, regardless of the type of damage/skull you're using. If more hybrid skulls had such flexibility and utility, they'd probably be grabbed more.

[Ittrix]

Prisoner is probably the best design, yeah. It still irks me his basic attack scales with physical if I want to go magical, but it's not as annoying as when I get a skill that doesn't match everything else that I'm basically stuck with forever.

Most of them don't even feel like hybrid skulls. I wouldn't look at thief or grave digger and go "oh yeah I'm *supposed* to mix attacks of both types" I would just say "Oh, okay. Basically magic and don't worry about basic attacks."
Clown is the only other one I'd really call hybrid, and I've never liked clown when I picked them up. Dunno if that's because they're hybrid or because they're clown, though.

[Runic Tunic]

Originally posted by Ittrix:

Prisoner is probably the best design, yeah. It still irks me his basic attack scales with physical if I want to go magical, but it's not as annoying as when I get a skill that doesn't match everything else that I'm basically stuck with forever.

Most of them don't even feel like hybrid skulls. I wouldn't look at thief or grave digger and go "oh yeah I'm *supposed* to mix attacks of both types" I would just say "Oh, okay. Basically magic and don't worry about basic attacks."
Clown is the only other one I'd really call hybrid, and I've never liked clown when I picked them up. Dunno if that's because they're hybrid or because they're clown, though.

Yeah I agree about the physical scaling, but at least if you do an all magic run, you can pop out, toss some bombs and switch back again. Kinda like Bomber.

I feel like the devs are trying to get people to make swap builds for the hybrids, thus why so many are ability dependent for a specific type of damage type (like GD and his abilities being all magic but normals are physical and slow af).

That's all fine and dandy, but most of the time, I don't feel like it's worth doing.

[815|Shouldabeen]

I find it amusing people keep saying "prisoner is best design for hybrid skull" when he's a character from another game. Feelsbadman.

[MadCrabPrime]

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

I find it amusing people keep saying "prisoner is best design for hybrid skull" when he's a character from another game. Feelsbadman.

we are talking on how he plays, not character design

[Runic Tunic]

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

I find it amusing people keep saying "prisoner is best design for hybrid skull" when he's a character from another game. Feelsbadman.

I mean he is a hybrid skull that plays better than others, and how he plays in Skul isn't identical to how he plays in Dead Cells........so whether he's from another game or not doesn't really matter. He's justa fun crossover reference.

If we wanna get technical, the majority of skulls in the game are references in some way anyway. None of them can do everything what their referencing can actually do.

[Titan]

I do agree GD's effectiveness is a little too dependent on which skills he gets. He just feels too rough too early with how ineffective his basic is, it's the same reason I personally dislike paladin. You're basically stuck swinging a useless twig around until you get your skills back (Although at least Paladin has decent cooldowns so you are able to consistently do damage). It just feels like "Waiting for cooldowns, the character".

[Ittrix]

Oh right, dark paladin is Hybrid. I guess he's designed decently as far as hybrids go, though I don't like him either.

There's a reward for using skills properly, and the punishment is his cruddy base attack.
With the other hybrids it seems like there's no reason really.