Help with stage 8 (I'm going insane)

[Red Purger]

I've been trying to obliterate on monsoon with Captain for like 3 days now, but I can't do it. Every time it's the same; assuming I don't die on stage 1, I can breeze through every level in like 4 minutes. Once I get to stage 7 or 8 I pretty much die every time. I don't have the damage to clear the huge waves of tough enemies AND deal with the boss AND survive long enough to charge the portal.

Here is what I have tried:
-rushing through stages as quickly as possible grabbing only items that are in my path, clearing in right around 2:30 seconds, then moving on
-grabbing items on my path and around the teleporter immediately after charging
-item hoarding and trying to get every item on the stage before leaving
-doing all of the above but instead of obliterating I try to beat mithrix instead

every playthrough ends the same way. I die. I die right at the end. I don't know what to do. It's always stage 7 or 8 that kills me. I blow through every other stage with ease, nuking bosses and clearing huge waves of enemies, then at stage 7 or 8 it's the exact opposite; I have to play hit and run the entire time, kiting enemies and nuking with my abilities until I make a single mistake that ends my run.

I don't know what to do. Honestly I'm kind of new to this game having only got it like a week ago, so I'm hoping some more experienced players can give me some advice and hopefully help me clear stage 8 and obliterate.

[WitheredRose]

try optimizing your items with 3d printers. malachite and celestine enemies are in full force by stage 7 and 8, both have insane hp and damage (along with disabling healing and hiding other enemies respectively) so they should be treated with a lot of caution. barriers and tougher times can allow you to make multiple mistakes. doing void fields early can get you a huge boost in power without too much risk. if you need to, use artifacts or play with other people. hope this helps!

[Matondia]

Did you try doing the void cells level ? if you get it quickly at the first stage, it can give you more firepower for the begining of the run, thus going a bit faster and making the run easier.

You can also use artifacts. Artifact of Sacrifice makes the begining of the run harder, but you can go faster as you don't have to search through the whole level, and it will snowball, especially if you do the void cells level

[procy]

It's because you're 'breezing' through each stage in 4 minutes, the game out scales you because you're too focused on going fast instead of building properly, take advantage of scrappers and printers. Sure it doesn't work every time, but it works more times than not if you just take your time and do everything you need per stage. The 1 rule or piece of advice I can give to anyone is "The timer is not important, it is a noob trap to trick you into going faster than you should, slow down." I've won far far more games going slow and methodical than I have going fast.

[Lunacy]

The command artifact can make any run pretty easy if you know good items to choose. tri-tipped dagger is pretty good on captain since he can apply like 8 bleed stacks a shot.

[Red Purger]

update on the status: I actually completed the monsoon run. I don't like to use artifacts when i'm playing to complete challenges but I managed to get through it anyway. Thanks for all the advice.

[Seal]

Unfortunately, recent updates absolutely jacked the difficulty curves. Without specific items, you will very quickly get overwhelmed no matter how fast you go. Your only options are to rely on RNG and hope you get the 3D printers and scrappers that you need to keep up. The current meta is to use artifacts. It's not my preferred way to play either, but it becomes very clear that the newer difficulty curves are balanced around Command. Having it instantly turns Monsoon into a cakewalk, and because you have no RNG to worry about, you can consistently clear Stage 8 and beyond.

Prior to 1.0, you would have had very little trouble clearing Stage 8 going at a pace of 2:30 per stage. As long as you were able to make the most of the items you were given, you could consistently keep up with the enemies. On later stages, you would need to have a more filled out build, but speed would keep you alive in the early game. Frankly, I cannot understand why they changed the difficulty curves at all. They were perfectly balanced around the vanilla game experience (i.e. no artifacts), and they worked well to get new players warmed up on Drizzle until they could keep up with the intense Monsoon. Maybe there's a chance that the devs would implement options for using legacy difficulties, but I am not optimistic.

[procy]

Trial and Error, Playing more = being a better player. It's not a nice answer but, play more, you'll get it down to a science, it won't be chance anymore.