This game punishingly hard?

[randoms2]

I'm stuck at dimension 1, third boss, with what feels like 0% chance of beating him.

My line up

Holy Maiden (Master) lv 41 (Tank, dps, heals, the whole package)
Phase Shift, Rage, Hamstring, Vampire, Holy Spirit, Open slot

Nymph x2 (Legendary) Lvl 25ish (team damage reduction)
Each with Psychic Shield and Steely. One has taunt, other has open slot for 3rd

Centaur x2 Lvl 25ish (team damage buff)
1) Team Player and open slot
2) Sneaky and Greedy

Thing is I can clear up to the boss with almost 0 problems. I only get dropped when my Holy Maiden gets mind controlled and attacks herself. The mobs themselves all get demolished and I can usually clear up to the boss extremely easy.

But the boss... The boss 2-shots my maiden and 1-shots everyone else. Even if I pop a defense pot, the maiden might live through three attacks, but my team gets insta-dropped by the aoe. I don't get a chance at all to do any realistic damage to the dude

ATM I'm starting to get walled by income. I can go to work, afk then double my income and get maybe 2mil if I was gone for 8 hours, but that's just a single level up for my maiden with a few 100k gold to spare. I checked out the player guide for possible F2P creatures I can get that might be a bit tankier then my maiden, and the only one is the demon mammoth which has the "same" VIT value. So HP-wise, I'm as tanky as I'm going to get outside levels.

So is the third boss designed to be this ridiculous? Am I supposed to just income for a month or two and hope I can beat him? after that long? I'm fairly active when I play too when I'm not working so I'm starting to get a bit disheartened.

[Vladimir Putin #ASeller]

I think defense and other potions stack, that's how I killed the demon squid boss.

[kevinshow]

well, you should have a healer. that will help for the time when you're kind of not getting 1-shotted but you're having a chance at taking the boss out. it means that even if you're getting 1-shotted right now, you still need to be working on levelling up the healer / healing aura spells for when you do get a benefit from them. Level 1 won't be as good as Level 10 or higher, which you can reach now at the stage where you are.

An example in your build is that I might just stick with 1 Centaur, and pick up a healer. Your Holy Maiden is healing itself. No one else is getting heals, and no one else is healing the Holy Maiden.

Most people go with Toad or Octopus for a while, to act as the healer. Others will upgrade to the Elder or Treant, as the next mages available in the human zone, if they want that additional slot for more abilities, but any mage that you pick should suffice. Mages will heal better than warriors because they have higher INT, which the heals are based on.

I forget when but at some point, you should be able to have 2 teams as well. Both of those teams will take their turn to fight for the run (including against bosses) so that can help as well. Since I forgot when you get it, it's possible that you may get it after reaching zones higher than this boss, so in that case, forget this as a suggested tip!

At the menu where you can upgrade the Market, upgrade to the level where you can sell Monsters for a big profit. That will help you out a lot , especially if you are an active player. Since I forgot when you get it, it's possible that you may get it after reaching zones higher than this boss, so in that case, forget this as a suggested tip!

Once you get to that point, then keep levelling up your monsters.

I can say that while a tanky monster helped, along with choosing particular abilities, what will help out as well is to level up your monsters. Their growing STR and VIT will keep adding to their overall effectiveness as well as the abilities. (although at this point, like you said, you might only be able to level up 1 or 2 times before you're out of money).

Now having said all that, there is one thing which I discovered later on in Dimension 1, that can help out if you're not using it yet. You didn't describe it so I'll assume you didn't. Use potions and the 80% speed boost.

Big and small potions stack on each other, so if you have a small defense and a large defense potion, use them both. Same for small and large attack potions.

If you're attacking at 80% speed, you also have an advantage on attacking the boss, as well as the minor monsters that you walk through the zones but for those guys, as you experienced, you can get through them without the speed boost. That's why it took me a while to realize how valuable that speed boost and potions are, because we seem to be making OK progress through the zones without potions and speed and then suddenly, we need a little more oomph, but how to get it without spending days getting gold to level up? By using the potions and speed boost.

[kevinshow]

i'll also mention a suggested build that some people use after they get to the Human Zone. It's not the only build that will work, but based on how the abilities work, it becomes fairly powerful. And if you decide to work on another team, your first team won't go to waste because you use it when you get 2 teams.

Nymph, Elder, Elf, Elf, Elder (position can be up to you, the main thing is not to have a healer die in the last position in case you meet a monster that attacks the rear)

Nymph is your tank, Elders are your healer or magic dps types (eg with healing, optimized healing, and/or healing aura), Elves will be dps . So you have 1 melee tank and 4 mages.

Elf abilities give you 2x Arcane Knowledge to all mages, which is 320% damage, Elder abilities gives 2x damage to the Nymph, which is 100%. They all get Tribalism trait, which means they all add to each other's attack damage, which can reach upwards of 100% each, after a few levels. So the Nymph will eventually have minimum 500% just from these abilities, the mages will have minimum 820%. then add in any other attack-boosting abilities that you wanted them to have and it could be even more.

in other words, this team's basic and learned abilities just kind of stacks on each other to keep boosting up the team. Now of course, their level will still matter because otherwise you still get 1-shotted but as far as their overall DPS once you are not getting 1-shotted, can help out. as you level them up, their attack continues to increase as well from being higher level.

based on the abilities you mentioned in your current build, the Team player ability adds to the team's attack but you can see how this build is different as well.

Now again, team members and abilities are something that isn't "ultimate" yet here in Dim 1. You can reach the end of Dimension 1 with your preferred choices. Ultimately what I saw as I finally reached the last zone of Dim 1 was that the monster levels played a part as well, since obviously as monsters get higher level, they attack and defend better, regardless of what traits they have or learned.

So if you don't want to redo monsters or add new monsters, it's Ok. Keep going with what you have, and it will be good to get through Dim 1 as well.

[Voltlighter]

The issue is levels. You mention income, but money is no object with lvl 9 market scrap ability. If you have market lvl 4, you just build up greens to 29/39/49 etc. with your ever larger money pool until you can afford market 9, and then all your scrap are massive profit.
Excess commons can be scrapped at 39 for space (and a cool 350K).

[AvidWriter]

Yes, it wants your $

[nfnp]

yes this game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ridiculous. I've been grinding away on the last two achievements for nearly a year.

I refuse to spend a cent.

[G4487]

The progression isn't too bad. Just 3 days in I reached ascension, but I think there was an event or something. I got 2 Master/Accursed and like 5 legendaries by day 3. What really started to pick up for me was when I got the "greedy" monster skill. Especially once it hits 50%, or you have two monsters with it. Keep an eye on abilities, in particular monsters with "unique" abilities such as Ancient Astronaut's Transcendant, which has multiple functions (self revive once per zone and beatdown skill that has potential to hit all monsters on a critical hit) and Mantis' Exoskeleton (300% vit shield that absorbs damage and when it breaks it stuns all monsters for 3s, and the shield restarts again in 10 seconds). Then also keep an eye out for monsters with more than 2 free skills slots, to customize and learn whatever skills you want. Progression is brutal at first, but once you have some decent skills, a cakewalk. I'm currently working on my 4th team, and haven't even ascended yet. Just farming the first 100 zones for now, and on average make about 5-8 million a run depending on whether or not I click stickers and keep my SPD at 80-100% can do a whole run in just a few minutes of active playing.

Money is no limit once you get your buildings to the levels that give more money. My building levels are already 8/8/6/6/1/not owned (haven't ascended yet) and I am keeping 50 million gold on hand at all times in case of emergency, just sacrificing all rares to fuel more "greedy" and team buff skills while I wait to ascend.... sorry if this is hard to follow but works for me! Good luck, is some luck determined. I don't know how I got the Master and Legendaries, but haven't put any money in (yet) those were just lucky or event maybe.