Temple too hard?

[Fleurdelys]

Anyone else finding themselves struggling on temple?(the second stage) Before the update I remember it's not much of a difference than any other maps. After the update it felt like it's significantly harder than the other stages,

I find myself struggling a lot on the second boss that is the bomb mine-launching ugly cyclops. The only thing that makes it easy to kill that mf is having frostbite and huge fire rate to kill it. If I fail to kill it quickly the squid mobs comes and I'll have limited mobility. Not to mention they will come with significantly higher hp and suddenly my build feels like literal water gun.

Mind you that I've been trying to get darkness 15 with spark and dual gun on this stage. The most successful run I had was full elemental and ethereal build which, also failed during the final phase. I've been changing the builds and I don't like to stick with one build because that kinda beats the purpose of roguelike.

Another thing I'd like to complaint about is the huge exploding abomination. Well I kinda get the gimmick for baiting it to explode then running away but when the mobs crowd the stage it's hard to avoid especially during the second boss phase. Maybe tone the hp down a little because it's soaking the bullets too much. It's quite a nuisance really compared to mobs from other stages because no other mobs is as annoying as that thing. Like the homing bullets bat and the broom riding witch is still manageable for me. Now that I said it, I think maybe I focus on the other mobs first.

I still think the second stage is a bit unfair tho. Especially when the squids come closing in during second boss. Maybe make it easier to kill the second boss or anything idk.

[Fleurdelys]

just died with 4 minutes left. Tentacles everywhere and I can't see what to dodge lol.

[carp]

I find there to be an enormous difference in difficulty between the forest and the other two, but I don't consider the temple harder than the pumpkin patch. (At least playing on the highest darkness.)

[Kevorkian]

The temple is definitely harder. The advanced explosive enemies seem to have infinite hp. I've made them explode by getting close, but I don't think I've killed one yet.

[Radiowavehero]

I think you have to adapt to the small space , the ice upgrade tree is always good , crowd control , boss stunlock if you are fast enough , chip damage that is % hp based so it is always a little useful even on enemies with huge HP and even some AOE on enemy death.

Other than that you gotta use the exploders self destruction against them which is a weird playstyle. Moving close so they start to detonate then backing off , if you are mobile it's pretty easy and much faster than fighting them normally.

Pumpkin patch has it's own quirks, fast moving enemies hidden in the groups that can rush you, forcing you to be able to move quickly either by killing the groups , freezing the fast guys or having some aoe.

Forest is just siege mode , you can just stand still with only a little bit of wiggling when the ranged attackers show up , it's biggest gimmick is probably the boss fights and huge numbers of enemies.

You can probably use one playstyle for all maps but it might feel better or worse in some places than others.

[nul]

Originally posted by Radiowavehero:

You can probably use one playstyle for all maps but it might feel better or worse in some places than others.

Freeze will probably work for all of them, especially if you get the % health damage, shatter, splinter bullets on death, and the 20% execute. Large swarms will usually just die with this. Even better if you use the rune that has a % chance to spread burn/freeze on enemy death.

But probably not for every weapon or character. I find Dasher easier to play on Temple and Pumpkin Patch because of the invincibility, plus huge knockback when it ends.

Then miniclip builds tend to work good just about anywhere. Like curse sword build (low mag, high fire rate, fast reload), or fan fire explosive magic arrows (return and explosions from magic arrows aren't affected by the 10% damage that fanfire normally does)

[Dr Six, corgi battlemaster]

The explosive enemies have massive HP and corner you, the ranged enemies seems to have faster projectiles with a higher fire rate (but maybe don't quote me on that). The last boss also does a good job at zoning you and stopping you from firing back, and feels like an actual boss fight as opposed to a glorified bullet sponge. I beat Pumpkin patch my first try, and find Temple to be way harder than the other two.

[Fleurdelys]

Originally posted by Radiowavehero:

I think you have to adapt to the small space , the ice upgrade tree is always good , crowd control , boss stunlock if you are fast enough , chip damage that is % hp based so it is always a little useful even on enemies with huge HP and even some AOE on enemy death.

Other than that you gotta use the exploders self destruction against them which is a weird playstyle. Moving close so they start to detonate then backing off , if you are mobile it's pretty easy and much faster than fighting them normally.

Pumpkin patch has it's own quirks, fast moving enemies hidden in the groups that can rush you, forcing you to be able to move quickly either by killing the groups , freezing the fast guys or having some aoe.

Forest is just siege mode , you can just stand still with only a little bit of wiggling when the ranged attackers show up , it's biggest gimmick is probably the boss fights and huge numbers of enemies.

You can probably use one playstyle for all maps but it might feel better or worse in some places than others.

I kinda agree that Ice is probably one of the best tree because two out of three builds that successfully killed the second boss in temple is Ice. Only once I managed to kill it with fire build.
Bullet builds however never worked well yeah because the dual gun is supposed to be weak. Not to mention I never got the right luck to complete the build lol.
I also agree that certain playstyle is more favorable on certain stages but I find it's more restricted in the temple stage.

Personally I'll rank Temple as the hardest, followed by pumpkin patch and then forest. I don't know how hard it is in endless mode though because I don't play that mode much.

[Fleurdelys]

Originally posted by Dr Six:

The explosive enemies have massive HP and corner you, the ranged enemies seems to have faster projectiles with a higher fire rate (but maybe don't quote me on that). The last boss also does a good job at zoning you and stopping you from firing back, and feels like an actual boss fight as opposed to a glorified bullet sponge. I beat Pumpkin patch my first try, and find Temple to be way harder than the other two.

Yeah the thing about the last boss is you'll find yourself stuck too easily. The tentacles spawn almost without pause and the mobs just keep coming including those damn fast-homing projectiles. It's just so hard to avoid everything when your own attacks blinds you while the enemy outlines doesn't really put much of a difference.

It's kinda funny really because the game was quite easy for me before full release and now it's just significantly harder that I start to complaint on discussion lol. I don't know if it's more challenging now or just unfair.

[Dr Six, corgi battlemaster]

Funnily enough, our discussion prompted me to try again and I just beat it for the first time. I'll provide a rundown of what won it for me:

I chose Dasher with a pistol, I'd personally recommend either that or the SMGs. In terms of runes, the important ones were the following: Power, Cadence, Agility, Blessing, and Wind Shield. Wind Shield was absolutely phenomenal for dealing with the mage enemies, and having a reliable "heal" in the form of the default blessed shield also did me wonders. As you can probably tell, the playstyle that I employed was very defensive. My skill prioritization was as such:

1. Summoning - I built dragon very early, and focused summoning damage for Dasher's deer form. If you get Dasher's deer friend early, it's am immense help. I only managed to get the aforementioned summons, as well as the ghost, and this amounted to shredding the final boss in what seemed like ten seconds flat. As I said, damage for summons was the focus in order to compliment Dasher's own ability, but other investments in this category also proved very useful.

2. Defensive skills - I don't know if this deserves its own category seeing as I'm mainly talking about one skill, but utilizing the one that grants you a soul heart every 90s made my defense feel effectively impenetrable, paired with my runes. Dodge is also beneficial, as usual, and is only complimented by the Agility rune. Soul heart buffs and shield skills come after, but they're not all that significant in comparison.


3. Bullet damage - Though this build mostly relied on Dasher's ability to remain invincible & deal damage, and by proxy summons which are also affected by buffs to her deer form, bullet damage is always of avail. Especially considering that I picked up a Tome of Summoning which slowed my reload speed to a crawl, making my shots acount was quite significant.

In essence, stacking defensive capabilities on top of each other, and letting Dasher's ability & summons do the damage is what won the run. There's no surprise there, though, since that's really the most safe build in the entire game. I'd like to reiterate that the final boss was torn apart, which I abolutely didn't expect.

[Dead Weight]

This prompted me to try with Spark and the dual smgs. After a few false starts and a failed run caused by hubris I got it done. The reload on lightning strike and dodge were a must for it, and that first one I chased for every run until the successful one.
Temple is definitely harder than Forest but it's really a question of damage. I think Shub Niggurath died at 14:05 which I consider a pretty good metric and while I got lucky to go through the onslaught immediately after with a timely health upgrade and a dodge or two it went pretty smoothly past that point.

[LazärheaD]

Playing on mobile and the struggle is real. That mirage boss is a pain. Still, there is the chance to grind my way out of this if I max out the upgrades.

[RALaeventein]

Haha lilith and bat gun go brrr