Is Gauntlet mode supposed to be unfair?

[Crusher Von Splattenheim]

I haven't played this game in quite some time, but I do remember getting to level 100 back in the old gauntlet mode and having a blast.

Well I'm at Gauntlet level 10, just got a bit past level 25 and my dungeon is populated by Strong Golems, Strong Firebrands, and Strong Mudslingers.

I'm somewhat thankful for the Strong Firebrands because they often waste their attacks trying to do "set random squares on fire" move, but OMG the Strong Golems and Strong Mudslingers.

The Strong Mudslingers are the worst because I only have about 1,000 HP, and each time they hit me they do about 120 damage and they do this damage from range. The second they're spotted I automatically lose over a 10th of my HP. They have so much health that if I had tried to walk up to them with a sword, I'd be down to about half health by the time I engaged in melee combat and at critical afterward.

Engaging with ranged enemies with a melee weapon is stupid, you say?

Maybe so, but y'know what? Picking at one of these Strong Mudslingers with a bow is actually just as likely to get me killed because a bow at this level just doesn't do the raw damage to kill the thing.

Practically same deal with the Strong Golems which take several hits to kill.

I actually walked into this dungeon with an ice crab and a helper. They got pulverized.


Takes a couple casts of a spell to kill these guys. Heck, throwing weapons only take of half their health.

These things are tanks.


Like, I'm not opposed to there being strong versions of enemies especially in later dungeons... but there was nothing wrong with having a weak enemy or 2 along the way.

Seriously, having half the enemy population be these walking damage sponges just makes weapons all but completely useless. Only way you can survive a fight with these if they each had an 80% chance to drop a potion on death.


Btw, I'm not exaggerating when I say like half the enemies in the dungeon are the strong versions. Only reason why my run isn't over this instant is because of an exploit that I happened to discover by accident. Well 2 exploits actually.

The first exploit I discovered is that changing dungeon levels refills your pet's HP, and it's actually a good thing this happens because otherwise melee pets get chewed up and spit out and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

Smartest pet in the entire game seems to be that purple dragon.

Well when testing out if that happened consistently I also happened upon another little something.

If you have throwing weapons and there's only 1 throwing weapon left in the stack and you change dungeon floors? Fills back up to 5. Infinite throwing weapons.


The only reason I'm not dead right now is because I have access to infinite throwing weapons. These things hit like a truck, and these Strong Golems and Strong Mudslingers (and technically Strong Firebrands to be fair) shrug the first hit off.



Like is there some secret to legitimate victory that I've missed? Some really OP'd spell combinations that wipe the floor with Strong enemies? I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts.

[HybridVitae]

it seems something is making "Strong" enemies appear too often, I am now facing similar problems as the ones you're describing...

[Crusher Von Splattenheim]

A long long time ago, when this game was first released, the dev was somewhat active. The dev was obsessed with making sure the game wasn't too easy. It was for that reason why switching weapons costs a turn and why they never changed the fact that not only do monsters immediately agro when revealed but also immediately attack.

Basically making it so that no matter what, a player would be forced to take unfair damage.

These design flaws were smoothed over by the fact that when strong monsters started to spawn, there were still normal monsters and the occasional weak monster, so it wasn't *so* bad to get hit by piddly fireball here or mudball there.



These days?
Enemies get so much HP and deal significant damage that it becomes impossible to continue unless you cheese the game.